


Little Hero

by dramirezgarrido



Series: Reverse Robins LH [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Streets of Gotham (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: 2.000 to 3.000 words Chapters, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Damian Needs Therapy, Damian Wayne is Batboy, Damian Wayne is a Genius, Damian Wayne is an Idiot, Damian Wayne-centric, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Damian Wayne, Hurt/Comfort, Justice League babysits Damian, Lantern Reversal, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post 9/11 America, Protective Alfred Pennyworth, Racism, Robin reversal, We are Robin replaced by Sons of Batman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 50,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramirezgarrido/pseuds/dramirezgarrido
Summary: Unfortunately for the criminals of Gotham, the Batman left behind a legacy, if you could call him that: a ten-year-old assassin with far too many anger issues. Don’t worry, he won’t kill you since he did promise his father not to kill again. However, he will probably cut your hand for mugging.ORRobin Reversal (Damian's first) but Bruce 'dies' one month after taking Damian in.Part 1 (Chapters 1-15), Hero or Soldier?:Damian's first month as the first Child Hero.Part 2 (Chapters 16-??), Outlaw:Batboy is an outlaw now. What does this mean for his career as a vigilante?
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Damian Wayne, Barry Allen & Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Clark Kent & Damian Wayne, Clark Kent & Jonathan Samuel Kent, Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Damian Wayne & Colin Wilkes, Damian Wayne & J'onn J'onzz, Damian Wayne & Oliver Queen, Damian Wayne & Simon Baz, Diana (Wonder Woman) & Damian Wayne, Dinah Lance & Damian Wayne
Series: Reverse Robins LH [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029330
Comments: 58
Kudos: 197





	1. Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> Batman is 'killed' in September 2002, if you are asking. This will be hard for Damian.
> 
> The Robin Reversal tag means Damian is the first one, so not sibilings... for now.

“We don’t kill!” exclaimed Batman as he slapped the ten-year-old. The sound of the hit echoed through the walls of the cave. The argument had gotten out of control.

It was uncanny. Damian didn’t even rub his face or gave any sign about physical pain. But the hit was hard enough to warrant blood in Damian’s mouth. Bruce didn’t realize he had taken it too far until Damian spitted the blood on the floor. “Grandfather would disagree, father,” he argued, as if the occurrence was normal.

“Your grandfather is a flawed man in many ways,” Bruce replied, as if he weren’t shocked at the lack of restraint, he had showed just moments earlier.

“Then why did you leave me with him?” inquired Damian. The kid off-course tried to keep any sign of being hurt off his voice and face, but it faintly registered through his stoic front.

“I had no idea of your existence,” answered Bruce in a very matter-of-fact way.

Damian gave a bitter laugh, as if what Bruce just said was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “You are the world’s greatest detective, and you are expecting me to believe that you didn’t know about me,” he commented drily.

“Detective skills do not equate to omniscience,” lectured Bruce. However, he couldn’t help but to feel that he had indeed failed, that he hadn’t lived up to his reputation.

“We are talking about me! Your own blood! For my mother to conceive me you must have had sexual intercourse with her!” shouted Damian, showing all his anger in his face.

“She drugged me,” remarked Bruce, again, in a very matter of fact way.

“And you didn’t dig deeper,” Damian laughed bitterly again. Bruce stayed silent, glaring at Damian. But the kid was unfazed. “Maybe you are right, my grandfather is an old fool, calling you detective for your skills,” his words were filled with venom and spite, as if he were trying to kill with them. “It doesn’t matter to you that I am your blood. After all, I was an accident. Unintended. The product of rape.”

The situation was getting out of hand again, and Bruce just started to realize that. He had allowed Damian to take control of the direction of the conversation, empowering him to make outrageous claims. “Damian-” he attempted.

But Damian didn’t give him a chance to interrupt. “I’m not a fool, father! I know what rape is! I know what hate and disgust look like! I know how you look at me! Even through that cowl of yours it is fairly obvious!” yelled Damian. And Damian was obviously blowing things out of proportion. However, as his words were an exaggeration, they held some truth. And the truth was that for all the skills the child had, he was still an unlikeable little brat. But what Bruce didn’t fundamentally like at all, was that his name and his blood was associated to the one of a cold-blooded killer. A child, but nonetheless, a killer.

Damian panted. His face was a mess. The last rant had a lot of emotion showing in his face. His eyes were glassy. He then continued, almost too quiet to be able to hear. “Let’s do both a favor and stop pretending that we like each other. I’ve come here merely to train under your guidance. That includes field work. As long as you are able to provide that, I will follow the rules. If you won’t, then you’d better kick me out or I’ll go back to the League by myself.” 

Damian didn’t even wait for the response. He just ran and climbed the stairwell towards the manor. Likely to hide in his own room. And for the first time in the 3 days since Damian had come, Bruce was actually able to see Damian for what he was: just a child. A child that threw tantrums and sought approval. A child that happened to be a killer, yes, but a child, nonetheless. Now he was realizing that he had done a spectacularly shitty job at parenting: in barely three days he had managed to make his child feel unwanted enough that the League of Assassins was a better place in comparison. It was partially because of putting the mission first (and he would never regret putting the mission first), but it was also because he hadn’t been able to get past his own feelings and try to get to know him. 

“Exemplary parenting, Master Bruce” sarcastically remarked Alfred. Bruce hadn’t even registered that Alfred had gotten to the cave. He had no clue at what particular moment of the argument the butler had arrived. “Perhaps I should remind you that Master Damian is a young child, not the anti-Christ, whatever his name may suggest.”

“I know Alfred,” sighed Bruce, removing his cowl and boots. “It’s just… too sudden. I didn’t expect to have a kid, much less one that is this old. Not to mention that he is an assassin Alfred.”

“Talia indoctrinated the child in her own inimitable way… into the league of assassins. He is a disrespectful and rude, violent boy. Quite unlikeable to be honest. However, he is also intelligent, determined, and bold,” monologued Alfred. He paused, considering what he was going to say next. “He reminds me an awful lot to you at the same age, Master Bruce.” Bruce always knew that taking care of him wasn’t easy for Alfred; however, he didn’t know that he was this difficult. It made him feel ashamed, both for his past behavior and the present treatment of his son.

“I don’t know what to do to change him,” lamented Bruce.

Alfred put a hand on his shoulder. “Master Damian won’t stop being himself, no matter what you do,” stated Alfred. Bruce shuddered, feeling hopelessness settling inside him. Before he could overthink it though, Alfred continued: “Killing and violence are not Master Damian’s essence,” and for the first time in the whole exchange, Bruce rose his head to meet Alfred’s gaze. “The boy is angry at the world; that anger won’t go away. Nevertheless, you can give him the tools to cope with it in a healthier manner. You want him not to kill? Then give him non-lethal methods.”

And the way Alfred said it, as if it was obvious, made Bruce feel hopeful. But the fear was still potent, and Bruce wasn’t quite sure what he was scared at. He wanted to negate it: Batman had no fears, especially if they were irrational. But here he was, scared to interact with his own ten-year-old son. “You should go to talk to him now, Master Bruce. We wouldn’t want him raiding your bank account to take the first commercial flight to Khadym. And no, Master Bruce, there are no city-ending events, so you can’t postpone this.”

Damn Alfred and his British sarcasm.

He was right though. He needed to talk to Damian as soon as possible.

…

“Damian, we need to talk,” announced Father while knocking on the door, using his Batman voice, the one he uses for criminals. Damian was expecting it, but he didn’t want to face it yet. He didn’t want to face the punishment of his Mother either for his spectacular failure: only three days and he managed to screw up the mission. He didn’t answer. He didn’t want his Father to see him in this state: broken and in tears. If he saw him, it would solidify Father’s perception that he is weak, eliminating any doubts for sending him back home. “I’m entering,” Father said, disregarding that he wasn’t given permission to enter Damian’s room. Fitting, considering that soon enough, it won’t be Damian’s anymore.

Upon his father’s entrance, Damian remained hidden in the lowest of the closet’s drawers, not making any sound at all. “Damian, get out of wherever you are hiding now,” demanded Father. Damian would delay as much as he could the deliverance of his punishment, so he didn’t obey his father’s command, regardless of what he had been trained to do. The room remained silent for a few moments. “Damian, son, please…” the voice now was softer, almost pleading. However, Damian knew better than allowing himself to be swayed by it. It was a trap. There is no doubt.

He heard footsteps, sounds of Father registering the room, attempting to find Damian. It took nearly thirty seconds before Father found him in the drawer. Great, another reason to send him back, he couldn’t even hide well enough to stall for a minute. He quickly rubbed the tears off his face and glared at his father.

Father’s face softened, filling with an emotion that Damian couldn’t quite recognize. “Damian, please get out of there so we can have a proper conversation. I assure you that I will not harm you,” everything was said in an unbelievably soft tone, trying to make Damian relax his guard. He wasn’t foolish, he wouldn’t. However, he did get out of the drawer by himself as he didn’t want to get manhandled out of it.

Once he got out of it, he stood straight, taking as much space as he could, with the confidence he really didn’t have right now. He met his father’s gaze. The two kept looking at each other for several minutes until Damian got impatient. He tapped his foot on the floor. “Well?”

Father sighed, and Damian’s heartbeat rose. He braced himself for the worst. “I’m not sending you back.”

Damian stood there, staring at him disbelievingly. He waited for the moment Father would go back on his word and berate him for hoping he could stay. The moment never came. He only managed to get out a pathetic “What?” his voice sounding much smaller than what he would’ve liked.

“Damian, you are my son. I’m not abandoning you under any circumstance,” stated Bruce, with a conviction that Damian couldn’t help but almost believe him. Almost being keyword here.

“But… you didn’t want me,” said Damian, on the verge of tears. His red eyes were now glassy again.

“You weren’t planned, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you. You’ve made mistakes, but that doesn’t negate the fact that you are my son,” explained Father.

Damian couldn’t hold it anymore. Tears were sliding off his cheeks. He was awfully silent for someone that was crying. He knew that he was showing weakness to his father, but he couldn’t help it, and his father didn’t seem to be minding it a lot. “However, I need you to promise that you won’t kill under any circumstance.”

“And if to save someone I have no option but to kill?” puzzled Damian. After all, Batman’s mission was to save as many people as he could. To protect Gotham. Damian honestly didn’t know what that filthy crime-ridden city had. But it was his father’s mission, so he wouldn’t question it.

“I’ll teach you how to save people and fight crime without killing anybody,” proposed Father.

Damian nodded once. “I promise.”

Father wiped the tears off of Damian’s face. He then turned away and walked towards the door. “Come down when you are ready for dinner,” said Father. He then left the room.

Damian’s legs gave out. He knelt on the floor, still not believing what just happened. A sense of relief and a warm feeling quickly took over his chest.

When he took a seat at the dinner’s table, he was overall less confrontational and snappy.

…  
Things had slowly been getting better. Having a younger member in the family had brought a light to the manor that Alfred hadn’t seen since Martha and Thomas Wayne had been murdered. For all the darkness inside the kid, through his interactions with Master Bruce and Alfred, he had brought life to the house. He had forced Bruce to step more into the light to help his son. And for that Alfred was profoundly grateful. The kid had also become less insecure about his place in the family, less afraid that he would be sent back at the faintest sign of trouble. He was also getting used to the American way of life. Although, he had profoundly refused to be enrolled in a school, saying that he had the equivalent to multiple P.H.Ds. Bruce had tested Damian to prove that claim. The results were the following:

• P.H.D. level knowledge in Biology.  
• Master’s degree in space and mechanical engineering.  
• Graduate in Geosciences.  
• Graduate in Business Management.  
• Graduate in Chemistry.  
• Superior knowledge in anatomy.  
• Superior knowledge in philosophy.  
• Basic first aid.  
• Fluent in Arab, English, and Mandarin.  
• Perfect Spanish, French, Russian and Japanese.  
Although the multiple P.H.Ds affirmation was an exaggeration, the results were outstanding. Still, Master Bruce insisted to homeschool Damian to allow him to catch up in History. Master Damian’s response was to argue that he didn’t need to know what a bunch of dead people did before he was born. When Alfred argued that History was key to understanding geopolitics, Damian became a lot more interested and ‘begrudgingly’ agreed to learn it.

In the month that Damian had stayed with them, Alfred had caught Master Bruce smiling a tad more often. He himself was smiling more often. But off course, life never allows you to have good things.

The first invasion of Apokolips took one of the greatest earth heroes: Batman, the vigilante that had singlehandedly reduced crime to a historical minimum in the sewer that is Gotham. The Batman was a mere myth, a symbol on the skies of Gotham projected by the GCPD. Now, the world knew, the criminals knew; Batman wasn’t a legend, he was a man… a dead man. Barely a week had passed before the city was in complete chaos. And that’s the story of how Alfred found himself trying to convince an angry ten-year-old kid to not go alone into the streets of Gotham to fight crime.

“Your father would not want you to go out on patrol on misplaced rage,” argued Alfred. Meanwhile, Damian was walking towards the prototype motorcycle that he had been working on for two weeks.

“I hold no rage inside me,” replied Damian, hoping onto the vehicle. “We’ll never know what father wanted, because he foolishly let himself get killed.” Damian speeded out of the cave, ready to take the chaos on Gotham upfront.

Alfred felt helpless. The young man had developed respect for him in the short time he had stayed at the manor, learning that Alfred was more than a mere servant. Alfred had gained enough respect to order him around the house and get away with it. Patrol though was a completely different beast. Alfred was an old man; he couldn’t afford to follow the kid into danger. However, he did know people who could do so. He dialed the phone, waiting for someone to pick up.

“Hello?” said the man on the other end of the line.

“Master Clark, we have a situation…”


	2. Honoring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark does some babysitting duty. Alfred has a very important talk with Damian.

Superman found himself a week after the death of his best friend looking after the assassin boy he had left behind. He knew little about the boy besides that his mother was Talia Al Ghul. He had seen him in the funeral; the kid had refused to talk with anyone besides Alfred. What he learned was unnerving: the kid was in a maiming rampage, never seeming to take a rest from all the cutting. He never looked back to make sure that the victims were fine, seemingly more interested in inflicting pain on the criminals. But if Superman had to guess, the reasoning behind the boy’s actions could be sound; after all, there was too little time to properly handle all crimes in the city, and if you cut someone’s limb, getting medical attention became way more important than anything else. But no matter the rationalization, the real reason was that the kid was angry. Regardless, there was no justification behind the kid’s actions. They needed to talk before the kid could hurt more people.

Superman lowered himself to the ground, lifting dust in every direction with his landing. Damian turned around to meet his eyes, looking unimpressed, as if he were waiting for something just like this to happen. Superman noted that the kid had a hand hovering over his utility belt. His x-ray vision revealed that the pouch was lead-lined. It had to be kryptonite. The kid was dangerous, even to a kryptonian, and never would Superman allow him to get near his son.

“Superman,” the little assassin acknowledged, sounding a lot older than he actually was.

“Damian,” greeted Superman with the smile he used to talk to kids.

Damian scoffed. “Ibn Al Xu’ffasch in the field.” Clark knew that ‘Ibn’ meant son, so he guessed that Damian’s codename meant ‘Son of Batman’, though he would look it up later. “I will assume that you’ve been surveilling me for the last hour since I’ve left the cave.”

There was no point on denying it. “Alfred was concerned about your wellbeing,” explained Superman.

The kid looked insulted. “As you can see, I’m fine. So, you can tell Alfred to stop doubting my abilities,” said the boy petulantly.

Superman now had an idea of what the kid found insulting and adjusted his argument. “No matter how skilled you are, he won’t stop worrying about you,” stated Superman.

It seemed the wrong thing to say, as the kid’s frowned deepened. “Western conception of maturity is retarded. Old people seem to think that I’m not able to make my own decisions because of my young age, regardless of the judgement I’ve proven to have. You all seem to think that I should indulge in childish behavior and attend a backwards educational system. Well, I won’t stop patrolling because a bunch of old people want me to be inferior version of me!”

Superman carefully listened to Damian’s rant, trying to find clues that would allow him to stop, or at least, change his behavior. Any adult would’ve dismissed the argument, regardless of how soundly it was constructed. However, this was Superman, people should be ants to him due to his capacities, but he treats everyone as an equal. He wasn’t the kind of person to disregard a kid for their age. It was useful, as kids would be more willing to hear him, as they wouldn’t sense any patronization. And he considered the argument; after all, they were talking about a kid so skilled that having him patrolling was more dangerous to the criminals than to himself.

“It isn’t about maturity. It is about caring. Alfred worries because he cares about you,” finally said Superman. Damian cocked his head, visibly confused about what Superman just said. Superman suddenly felt a pang of sadness. It was terrible that there was someone (a ten-year-old no less) who couldn’t wrap their head around the idea that someone worries because they care. “It might have not been obvious, but Alfred worried every time that Batman went into the field.”

They fell silent for a moment, the cold breeze of Gotham passing by. Damian opened and closed his mouth multiple times. Finally, he said: “Still, Gotham needs someone to protect her. Father didn’t stop because someone worried about him. It won’t stop me either.”

And Clark met the fiery determination of Bruce’s eyes. The one he encountered when it was implied that he couldn’t do his job because he had no powers. The one he had in the face of insurmountable odds. Clark knew that attempting to stop him was going to be in vain. “I understand,” Clark nodded. “However, I will ask you to stop maiming criminals.”

Damian eyes widened for a fraction of second in surprise. He then scowled. “What an outrageous imbecilic request, alien. I have already promised to stop killing; now I have to care about criminals’ wellbeing?”

Clark wasn’t a psychiatrist, but he was fairly sure that what the kid just exhibited sociopathic behavior. There was no way he would allow him 100 meters near Jon. Still, he did his best not to show any disgust in his face, as that could make the kid go defensive. From what he gathered from Alfred, Damian cared a lot about legacy, and like any kid, wanted to make his father proud. He also seemed to have a stratospheric ego. “Batman always showed restraint because it was the right thing to do. It is more difficult to show restrain than not to. But if you want to live up to your father’s legacy, you’ll have to.”

Damian scowled. “There is no such thing as difficult for me. Unlike you alien, I have no weaknesses, certainly not ridiculous ones, like a green stone. If restraint is my father’s legacy, then I shall embrace it.”

Superman grinned at the kid. His plan worked perfectly. Guess Damian did have weaknesses, and ridiculous ones they were, nonetheless. “Here,” he said handing a com-link to Damian. “You forgot it when you got out.” He knew that Damian hadn’t forgot it. “If you don’t want Alfred to worry, don’t go out again without it.” Hopefully, that would make the kid bring his comm with him. After all, Alfred was the last remaining family of the kid.

Damian nodded, putting it on his ear. “Alfred.”

“Master Damian. I’m relieved to hear your voice,” Superman heard, using his super hearing.

“Likewise.” Clark was puzzled at that response but didn’t give it much thought though. “I’ll continue my patrol route. Keep me informed if anything big shows up,” said Damian, while grappling onto the next roof. Superman followed. “You don’t need to keep me company, Superman,” commented Damian, without facing Superman.

“Metropolis is too quiet tonight. I think I’ll hang out here,” excused Superman.

“-tt- Don’t slow me down. Don’t boss me around. I give the orders,” replied Damian. It was obvious that the kid wanted Superman here, otherwise he wouldn’t have laid the conditions.

“I won’t boss you around, but you won’t give the orders either,” offered Superman. He was off course going to give orders if the situation proved dire. But otherwise, it didn’t seem like it would be necessary.

“Fine. I agree to the terms of this partnership then,” settled Damian.

Clark grinned. After the death of Batman, he sometimes found it difficult to breathe, his mind filling up with thoughts of how he hadn’t saved his best friend. Maybe Superman had failed Batman in life, but Clark wouldn’t fail Bruce in death.

…

Alfred was cooking lunch. Devoting himself to the work at hand removed his mind from the recent loss they had all suffered. That was a trait that all the family seemed to share. He could still remember Thomas and Martha burying themselves on work when a dear friend to the family had died. However, Alfred knew that the sooner they truly dealt with their loss, the better. He wasn’t ready though; it has only been a week and a father should never burry their sons.

When he completed the meal, he went towards the living room, where Master Damian, his grandson, was watching the TV to ‘become acquainted with the culture’. When he arrived, the news was currently playing an interview with Superman. It wasn’t the usual Lois Lane that was interviewing him, but rather some reporter from a conservative outlet. Damian seemed extremely interested, so Alfred didn’t dare to interrupt.

“Superman, yesterday you were seen patrolling Gotham. Isn’t your city Metropolis?” inquired the reporter.

Superman, as always, answered with a grin and that boy scout attitude of his. “As you may know, since the death of Batman, Gotham’s situation has been slowly deteriorating. And no matter who, when they are in need, I help.”

The reporter smiled back. A traitorous one, Alfred noted. “You were seen patrolling with a ninja boy with Arab features. Who is this kid?”

“He is a Batman’s relative,” replied Superman. Damian scowled at the screen. If Alfred had to guess, he wanted to be recognized as his son. But the less the public knows, the better, or else, someone could put two plus two.

The reporter hummed, after Superman didn’t add anything. “He seemed to be awfully skilled for a kid his age. Where does this training come from?”

Superman was visibly uncomfortable with the question, but he tried to answer truthfully anyways. “From what I gathered; the kid had a very rough childhood. I don’t know the details though.”

“Couldn’t his upbringing be problematic? It is concerning, considering what we are commemorating today,” stated the reporter. And now Alfred was seeing red flags everywhere.

“The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was a dark day for our country, with a great loss of life. I’m sorry for the families of victims. But in regard to your question, he is not a terrorist, if that’s what you are implying.” The ‘not a terrorist’ part was said with such seriousness and authority, that the reporter immediately dropped the line of questioning in favor of a less controversial one. Alfred had enough of that conversation, he snatched the TV remote, turning the TV off.

“Master Damian,” he announced, “dinner is served.” It took a few seconds for the kid to acknowledge the question and nod accordingly. He hastily stood up from the couch, going to the dining room.

They sat together in the dining room. Upon two weeks of arriving to the house, Damian had approached Alfred on not accompanying them on their meals. Alfred had explained that he was a butler, and it would be inappropriate to sit with the family. To that, Damian responded: “I have a lot of servants back at home. Servants don’t get away with what you get away with,” so basically, the boy was acknowledging him as family. The boy insisted for a week before he convinced Bruce to gang up on Alfred until he agreed.

He was quieter than usual. Even after his father’s death, the boy always demanded Alfred to tell him stories about his father, commenting occasionally on his own experiences. But now, the kid was just poking the food, contemplating something. Alfred had already finished his food, but he would accompany Master Damian until hell freeze over if necessary.

It took an eternity, but finally Damian rose his gaze to meet Alfred’s. “I am not a terrorist,” commented Damian, with a carefully blank face, in a tone that concealed no hurt, like he was just stating a fact, and not defending himself.

“You are not,” agreed Alfred. And Alfred said it with all the conviction he could muster, to quell the boy’s insecurities.

The young man seemed somewhat less down, but he was far from being himself again. “So, why do they think that I am?”

And Alfred could have negated it. He could have said that they were a minority. That the majority of people didn’t think that. But Alfred knew better. Lying could be more hurtful in the future. If he wanted to help the young man before him, he had to address the issue, not avoid it. “These people do not know you. They can just see how you look, Master Damian, and to them you look different. People tend to dislike what is different, so they try to justify their dislike by associating you with a few bad apples.”

Damian, frowned, thoroughly confused. “They dislike me… because I’m not from this country?”

Alfred nodded, his heart breaking a little as he did so. Damian scrunched his face more, commenting: “That’s stupid.”

Alfred laughed at the comment, smiling at Damian. “I agree. It is certainly a misguided notion.” Damian pressed his lips, evidently trying not to smile back.

Still, there was something that was still bugging the boy, so Alfred didn’t leave the table. This time, at least, the young master kept eating. Finally, Damian stopped, without lifting his head. “Pennyworth, do I… am I disgracing my father’s legacy?”

Alfred felt anger bubbling up inside him. He didn’t show it though, as it wasn’t Damian whom his anger was directed towards. “Nonsense, Master Damian. You have been honoring him through your actions. Your origin, appearance or even past are irrelevant. I’m proud of you, and I’m sure that if Master Bruce were here, he would say as much.” And it was true, Alfred was proud of Damian, of the huge advancements he had made through the month. He was proud after he began showing restraint last night.

Damian lightly smiled, and it was delightful to Alfred. Since Damian had come to the Manor, he had never caught the boy smiling, and he feared he would never see it after Bruce’s death. It was also painful, because the boy was the vivid image of Master Bruce at a young age. Alfred finally retired, going to his bedroom.

…

“Dad, who is that kid the news mentioned?” asked Jon, in his usual innocent-curious attitude.

“Don’t talk with you mouth full, honey,” scolded Lois, pointing at his mouth with her Chinese chopsticks. Jon promptly shut his mouth off, looking at his dad with those beautiful blue eyes of his.

“He is Batman’s son. His name is Damian,” replied Clark. After what happened that day during the interview, he was glad that he was enjoying dinner with his family.

“Is he really a ninja?” asked Jon excited. He was always awed about the whole superhero thing, bugging his father about when he could be a hero like them. But Clark and Lois wanted a normal childhood for Jon, so he always answered, ‘not yet’.

“Yes,” replied Clark. He knew that Damian was technically an assassin, but for all practical applications, they were the same, so Clark wouldn’t bother in correcting Jon.

Jon lighted up, and Clark felt like he was melting seeing his twelve-year old. That is, until Jon said, “When can I meet him?”

Clark choked in his noodles. He was grateful that he just had heard an emergency in Metropolis, allowing to escape this conversation. “I need to go, there’s an emergency.” He stood up, undressing in the middle of the dining room.

Lois stood up to give a peck in the cheek to Clark. “Be safe, okay?”

Clark took her by the shoulders, kissing her forehead. “Yes ma’am.” He then leaned towards Jon, kissing him in the forehead too. “Good night, Jon.”

Jon smiled awkwardly at the show of affection. “Goodbye Dad.”

Clark went to the Porsche and took off. He was planning on babysitting Damian today too (the kid had to be constantly reminded to remain restrained. Besides, it would be irresponsible to allow him to go out on patrol alone). However, this was important. He dialed his Justice League comm. “Hello Diana, how are you?”

“Hello Clark, I’m fine. How’s things been going with Lois and Jon?” teased Diana.

“They’ve been good, thanks for asking,” he replied, ignoring that his kid wanted to meet a ten-year-old assassin. “I need a favor.”

“I figured.”


	3. Justice League babysits (Part 1)

“I expected the alien, amazonian,” sneered the little assassin boy. Diana had arrived in the middle of a battle. Damian had taken down 4 heavily armed henchmen, but 8 remained to be taken down. It was clear that the kid was struggling, so Wonder Woman swooped in. From what Clark had told her, the kid wasn’t a team player, so it was better to divide work than to attempt to actually work together. They did exactly that and did quick work on the henchmen, meeting later at the rooftop of the warehouse.

She was unfazed by the attitude and perpetual scowl of the boy, having been warned prior to this. “Hello there, little one,” she greeted enthusiastically, extending her arm.

Damian scowl deepened. He ignored her arm, instead going for saying: “I am not ‘little’, harlot.”

“Excuse me?” threatened Diana shocked at the rudeness of the kid.

“Are you deaf or something?” asked Damian, speaking louder than before. “I said, I am not ‘little’, harlot.”

Diana was pissed. She normally liked kids, independent of how difficult they were. However, she couldn’t stand bigots, no matter if the bigot was a kid. Normally, by just saying ‘excuse me’ people would stop the slandering. Evidently, it didn’t. Diana had an idea though that could work since the kid was a warrior. “You have forsaken my honor,” she said, unsheathing her blade, pointing it towards the brat. In response, he unsheathed his blade, taking a defensive position. “I hereby challenge you to a duel. If I win, you’ll have to retract on your slandering.”

Damian cocked his head. “And if I win?”

Diana thought about it for a bit. “I’ll stop calling you ‘little’.”

Damian smirked. “I accept the duel then, what are the rules?”

“Only swords, no gadgets.”

“If I don’t get to use gadgets, it’s only fair you don’t get to use your metahuman abilities.”

Diana nodded once. She then backed off to an acceptable distance for the duel. Damian dropped his utility belt on the ground, and unclipped his hoodie, preparing his stance. He then charged towards Diana.

Diana found herself impressed of Damian’s abilities. She knew that Damian had trained since birth. But coming from another warrior trained from birth, Damian was really good. She was positive that there hadn’t been someone his age throughout history that good with the sword. Still, Diana beat him (not effortlessly, but not that much of an effort). Damian laid on the ground, Diana’s sword pressed against his neck. “I yield.” Diana lifted her sword at once.

Damian immediately kneeled before her, putting his head on the ground. “My last statement was… misguided. I shouldn’t have forsaken your honor. I apologize for calling you a ‘Harlot’. You’ve defeated me fairly.”

Diana grinned. “You may rise little one,” she instructed. Damian carefully and slowly stood up again to his full height. He stared blankly at Wonder Woman, perhaps expecting something. Diana had no idea what the kid was waiting for, so she simply asked, “Shall we get going?” turning her back.

Damian blinked at her. “The punishment?”

Diana examined him for a second, before stating “You have corrected your mistakes. No punishment is due.” She turned her back again. She felt rage blossoming in her. Why? It wasn’t uncommon on Themiscyra to punish with whiplashes. Punishment was normal for her. But punishment was delivered on the basis of fair rules, and something about the way Damian behaved told her that the rules he grew up with weren’t fair at all.

…

Aside from Damian calling her ‘harlot’, patrol went smoothly. Part of what Clark had said, she had found true. Damian was overconfident, violent, and had to constantly be reminded to restrain himself. However, aside from starting with the wrong foot, she didn’t find him rude or egotistical; she rather found him weary and shy. “This calls for an ice cream,” she announced, after realizing how big of a success was the night.

Damian cocked his head, frowning. “Ice cream?”

Diana wasn’t surprised that Damian didn’t know what ice cream was, after all, when she first came to man’s world, she didn’t know either.

They went to a McDonalds 24h. Everyone in the McDonalds was livid that there was a super-hero and a tiny ninja ordering there. Diana ordered a single ice cream; Damian ordered the same. After being handed their ice creams, Damian glared at his. “Are you going to stare at it or are you going to eat it?” asked Diana. Damian frowned, taking a huge bite of it. He didn’t give any signs of a ‘frozen brain’ but Diana still scolded him. “Don’t eat it too fast or it will give you headaches!”

Damian frowned at her. “Why are you telling me this? Isn’t the pain my punishment?”

Wait, what? Hadn’t she been clear enough that she wouldn’t punish him? Okay, now it made perfect sense why Damian had been weary and shy during the patrol. She took a deep breath, not letting any anger through her voice to startle the voice. “I said I wouldn’t punish you little one, and I always speak the truth.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Damian puzzled, thoroughly confused.

“Did your father punish you?” asked Diana, knowing already the answer.

“He slapped me once for killing an opponent of mine. He ‘grounded’ me once for disobeying direct orders. Otherwise, he hadn’t.”

Diana was surprised at the slap thing. She couldn’t believe Bruce had done that, even for killing someone. It shouldn’t be a thing happening in western society, even in superhero families. It seemed like an isolated incident though, so it wouldn’t constitute abusive behavior. She was sure that Bruce had to have a good excuse, or at least, he didn’t do it in his right mind. Anyways, she knew that it wouldn’t help her case, but she had to try at least.

“In this part of the world, adults don’t correct children through physical punishment. They may ground them, or take things away, but they would never do something to hurt them. I don’t know why your father slapped you, but it wasn’t right,” explained Diana. Good, the explanation was good. She hoped that Damian would understand right away, though that was far too optimistic.

“But… aren’t you from another culture?” asked Damian, thoroughly confused.

And Diana guessed it was fair. After all, the amazons did use physical punishment. But she had learned that in the long run, it was better not to use such things, as it is condoning unilateral violence as a method to solve problems. She did challenge Damian to a duel, but it was more of a competition and she didn’t hurt Damian at all. “I do. But my culture stands to protect and never harm children,” and that was true.

“I’m not a child!” yelled Damian, slamming his fists on the table. The whole establishment gave him a look.

Diana chuckled. “You are very mature and capable. But you are still a child,” she calmly replied. Damian pouted, crossing his arms. Diana couldn’t help but to think that he looked adorable.

They got out of the establishment upon finishing their ice cream. “You are a very capable warrior, Damian. I’m looking forward to fighting by your side again,” praised Diana.

Damian scoffed. “Names, Amazonian,” complained Damian, looking away. It took a few seconds, but he finally added “You… weren’t incompetent, Wonder Woman.” The kid was flushed.

Diana raised an eyebrow. She guessed that it was too embarrassing for the kid to give a proper compliment. “Thanks. Goodbye, Ibn.” She then took off towards Themiscyra.

…

“For someone who has the power of the speed force, you are a slower than a turtle,” the brat complained. And that was the third jab the brat had taken at him in the night. Clark had told him the kid was difficult, Diana told him that he wasn’t that difficult, and honestly, Barry was wondering whether they babysat the same little brat, because the only way to describe him was a pain in the ass. The kid didn’t listen to orders, was disrespectful, jumped to action without previous warning, and had this holier than thou attitude. Barry didn’t expect this to be that draining.

“Master Damian,” scolded Alfred through the comm links. Barry was grateful that he wasn’t in Alfred shoes, because at this point, he would need a bunker in Arkham.

“What? It’s true. The next lead is obvious,” justified Damian. This patrol had consisted of busting out a Penguin’s operation. Barry didn’t know why, but the kid seemed to be expecting him to be on Batman’s level of deduction or something. Batman was strict, but at least he wasn’t unfair.

“Damian,” said Alfred in a certain tone.

Immediately, Damian’s demeanor changed. He went from annoyed, to little scolded kid. “M’ sorry,” he mumbled. It was obvious he didn’t feel sorry.

“The apology isn’t to my person, Master Damian,” coolly stated Alfred. “Be sure to be clear and loud when you give it to Mister Allen.”

Damian gritted his teeth, looking at the Flash in the eye. “I apologize Flash, that was ‘rude’ of my part,” finally apologized Damian (he made the quotes expression when saying rude), sounding like he was being tortured, or rather, that it was a torture to say it.

Barry simply raised an eyebrow to the brat. Damian finally decided to explain that based on the chemical composition of the sold drugs, a certain type of equipment is needed. Due to the tight regulations, there are only a few places in the city that could have this equipment. From all the companies, only one had disclosed stakeholders. So, it had to be the lab of that company. There, was it too difficult to say it? How was he supposed to know all of that? “What?” asked the brat, glaring at the speedster.

Flash sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.” He then took Damian and speeded towards the lab.

They busted it out pretty quickly, the kid as reckless as always. Barry had to remind him to restrain himself when the kid got too aggressive with the goons. It was weird though. Normally the kid built up aggressivity through the fight. However, this time, he got from zero to a hundred in a second. It was weird, until Barry saw blood dripping from Damian’s thigh. 

“You are injured,” said Barry. Damian immediately tensed. He didn’t think it was weird, after all, Bats covered up his injuries all the time. “Let me check.”

“I’m fine” said Damian, while tugging his cape not so discretely to cover up the thigh. Barry ignored him, kneeling to see the leg of the kid. It was a bullet wound. While Barry examined him, Damian was eerily still. What was unnerving though, was that the kid hadn’t given any sign of pain on the right leg during the whole fight, like he was truly fine.

Flash swept Ibn by the legs, quickly having him in a bridal-style carry. Damian, a little bit too fast, began to fight the Flash. Kicking, pushing, attempting to stab with his daggers to get out of the speedster’s hold. Obviously, Barry dodged every attempt at him while remaining firm on holding Damian. However, his face betrayed all the desperation of the situation. “Unhand me heathen!”

“If you continue fighting, you’ll make the wound worse,” tried to reason Barry. But Damian didn’t seem to hear, as he continued demanding to be put down while violently fighting. And as much as he wanted to comply and stop helping the little brat, he couldn’t let him harm himself. “If you continue fighting, I’ll tie you up,” finally threatened Barry. This seemed to immediately reduce Damian to just glaring.

Barry sped towards the Batcave, where Alfred was already waiting for them, med bay prepared. Barry deposited Damian in one of the beds, the kid still glaring daggers at him. Alfred immediately started to treat the wound. Damian rejected painkillers. Even without them, he barely flinched a couple of time during the procedure. “You must stay on bed for three days Master Damian. No physical activity for a week, including patrol.”

Damian’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that!” yelled the kid. “It was barely a minor wound! You can’t punish me like that!” Punish him?! Did the kid think this was punishment? Was this why he tried to cover up his wound? Alfred simply gave Damian a look. The kid looked like he wanted to kill Alfred. “I hate you!” he shouted, while running upstairs.

The poor old man sighed, disinfecting, and packing the medical supplies. Barry remained there dumbfounded, until Alfred pulled him out of his train of thoughts. “Master Bruce believed that Damian was punished in the League for returning with injuries on his missions,” explained Alfred. “The boy has extremely high pain tolerance, something that was instilled by the league too. Anything that isn’t immediately life threatening or substantially incapacitating might as well be a minor injury for him.”

Off course everything stems from the League. Those bastards. No matter how bratty and unlikeable Damian was, he was just a kid. “He needs therapy,” Barry blurted out.

“He does. However, bringing him to a therapist would rise a lot of questions. The psychiatrist has to be of confidence.” Barry thought that Black Canary would meet these criteria. “We also have considered that putting him on therapy might aggravate his insecurities, making him feel that there is something wrong with him.” That point was fair enough, but there should be something that Alfred could do to reassure the kid. “Finally, we were afraid that Damian wouldn’t cooperate in therapy, and for therapy to be successful, Damian needs to remain cooperative.”

“That isn’t an excuse,” argued Barry. “Whether Damian cooperates or not is beyond your control, but you have to do everything in your power to help him. The therapist is easy to figure out, Black Canary would be perfect for that role. As for Damian’s insecurities, I know you can figure that one out.”

The butler wasn’t defensive, he had acknowledged Barry’s argument and thought about it. He finally said “I guess you are right, Master Barry. I’m afraid I have allowed my actions to be guided by fear, instead of doing what’s best for Master Damian. I will contact Black Canary. In the meantime, would tea suit your tastes?”

Barry grinned. “Sure, just let me change. Be back in a Flash!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my headcanon, but I can perfectly imagine Damian fighting with a broken arm and leg due to the League's training.


	4. Legal Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some bonding between Alfred and Damian.

Damian Wayne had been reckless. He had moved into a position where he could have been hit by bullets. In fact, he was lucky that it was in that place of the leg; if it had hit a more important artery, he could have bled out. It was insulting that a simple stupid lowlife could have killed him. He should be better than that. Besides, the punishment would have been at least four times worse than the one he got.

In a certain way, in the League, punishments were worse. They were painful and aggravated an already existing problem. However, the punishments in the West were effective. They left the student with dread and boredom. Damian was sure that Pennyworth was trying to kill him from boredom with the punishment. To be honest, he preferred the punishments in the League as they didn’t go on for that long and they were a tad ineffective due to his pain tolerance.

However, it was true that he could get around in a number of ways to the punishment dealt. He couldn’t make himself battle-productive, but at least he could make himself productive. First, his father’s uniform was by all accounts, better than a league’s uniform, as it provided a lot of protection to uniform, as well as vertical movement options through gliding. Damian had been already working on a hood that would be able to serve as a glider. Now, he was going to work on a full suit that would provide him more protection but was still lighter than Batman’s. Second, he had been working on a prototype of a cycle that could hover. As of now, all attempts have ended in disaster, the last one of them in an explosion he barely managed to jump out of. He would have the cycle working by the end of the week. Finally, he needed to train in his hacking skills. There is a lot of information out there on the internet, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the bat computer already had backdoors to a great deal of it, he might as well be operating in the dark. It was jarring that the League had never paid attention to such an important skill. Damian guessed that his grandfather was truly an old fool.

Damian refused to talk to Pennyworth during the breakfast. He still hated the old man for relieving him from duty, even if it wasn’t that big of a deal. Yes, he was being childish, but surprisingly, he couldn’t care any less right now. The history homework Pennyworth left him was supposed to last for 8 hours, but Damian finished it in a third of it. Instead of asking for the next batch, like he usually did, he headed towards the Batcave, to proceed with his plan for the week.

He had been working on the cycle when Pennyworth called him for lunch. Damian continued ignoring Alfred, not because he was still hating on Alfred, but to continue with his childish tantrum. And Damian did not only feel undignified because of it, but he felt guilty, like he owed the old man acknowledgement. During his time in the League, he never felt that way except for Ravi. Maybe that was why he had been so quick in recognizing Pennyworth as family, after all, he wished Ravi were his family.

Damian had seen caring for a servant as wrong before he came with father. He didn’t even have a word to describe himself there. When he came to the West, he quickly learned upon stumbling on the concept of the emotional spectrum that he was a loving and compassionate person (at least, in comparison to the League of Assassins). It didn't settle well with him that he was compassionate, as compassion is weakness. Off course, if you compared him to the people in the West however, he shamefully leaned towards rage and fear. In other words, he was an outsider, both of the society he had been born at, and the society he was now part of. Although, he preferred way more fighting against criminals than having to rob artefacts around the world for his grandfather’s plans to save the earth. He didn’t understand what the fuck those ancient artifacts had to do with saving the environment. In fact, why didn’t the League blackmail the most important companies and governments into investing in cleaner energy? The whole killing three fourths of the population is based on a dated economic theory, from what he had learned, and it was radical as fuck. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that his grandfather was truly an old fool.

While he was finishing his new uniform design, he realized that it was thirty minutes since the supposed dining time. What the hell was Pennyworth doing?

He went towards the dining room. Nothing.

He went towards the kitchen. Nothing.

He went towards the living room. Nothing.

He went towards Pennyworth’s quarters. Nothing.

Where was Pennyworth? Did he leave to make an errand? If so, he should have left a note in the main door, as he didn’t announce it directly to Damian.

Again. Nothing.

Damian’s mind was running a thousand miles per second. Did something bad happen to Pennyworth? Was he kidnapped? No, there would have been signs of struggle or at least intrusion in that case. Did he collapse due to his old age while doing the chores? Did he abandon him after Damian had ignored him throughout the day? Damian didn’t want to be alone again. He ran through the hallways of the manor, easily ignoring the mild pain in his leg, desperate to find Pennyworth. His eyes were glassy. First Father and now Pennyworth. He didn’t want to go back to the League. He didn’t want to lose his new family. He didn’t want to be alone again. His mother was a great woman, but she made him feel like he was alone. She hadn’t even made an appearance after Father’s death. What was more important than his son? ‘Many things’ his mind helpfully supplied.

He finally found Pennyworth on Father’s room. Damian was relieved until he saw tears in the old man’s eyes. He was looking at a frame… Damian couldn’t make out the photo on it. “P- Pennyworth?” announced Damian, his voice tighter and smaller than he intended. Pennyworth looked up from the photo, his eyes dull and red, unbecoming of a collected man like him. Damian’s mind went blank. He knew he had to provide emotional comfort, but he didn’t know how to. It had been never required in the League, because ‘comfort was for the weak’ (he had seen his father getting comforted by Pennyworth, so he wasn’t even sure of that); his father had only required to be tactful with the victims, which Damian had found extremely difficult and hadn’t completely succeeded at.

“Master Damian,” finally acknowledged Pennyworth, wiping his tears, and putting the frame back into place. He stood up, as if nothing had happened. “Perhaps we should head back to the dining room. Dinner is ready, it just has to be served.”

Damian nodded, and went back straight to the dining room, not daring to glance back at Pennyworth. During the dinner, Damian talked about his projects on making a new uniform and making a cycle that could fly. He wanted Pennyworth to take his mind off the loss of his father, so he kept talking, even though Pennyworth was obviously thinking in something else. As his mother had thought him, if something didn’t work, a tactics change was necessary. He had seen that Pennyworth put a hand on top of Father’s shoulders or on his back to reassure him. He had also felt the reassurance when Father had placed a hand on his shoulder after a particularly successful patrol. For the first time since he had been four, he initiated physical contact. He placed his hand in top of Pennyworth’s. The old man just blankly stared at their hands. Damian panicked, thinking he had done something inappropriate. Before he could do anything though, Pennyworth turned his hand, squeezing Damian’s. Damian felt relieved. They stayed like that for a solid ten seconds before Damian retired his hand. When Damian retired back to the cave, he noticed that in the kitchen there was enough food left for one more person. He decided not to comment about it.

…

Alfred couldn’t help but feel proud of Master Damian. In a mere month he had been able to break so much from the League’s programming to hold hands with someone. He felt terribly sad when he thought that Master Bruce would never get to see the growth of the boy. But, at least, that moment gave him hope that he wouldn’t need to send Damian to therapy. However, he knew that it was wishful thinking, that it was his fear talking. He had to do it. He had allowed his son to go on a downwards spiral, and he couldn’t repeat the same mistakes with his grandson. Nevertheless, it begged the question, how would he breach the topic?

Due to working with his father on crime fighting, Master Damian would surely relate therapy with belonging to Arkham. It wouldn’t only wound his pride, but it would exacerbate his insecurities. Even if Alfred somehow managed to convince Master Damian that he wasn’t going to therapy because he was like the crazed criminals he fought, he knew the medical connotations that a psychiatrist brings, so he would think that he was sick somehow and through League’s logic he would be weak or worthless. But what if Alfred didn’t frame meetings with Dinah Lance as therapy… what if he called them counseling. He wouldn’t be lying after all. Alfred knew that the boy would probably have a wounded ego and feel more insecure, but it was the way out that made the lesser collateral damage that Alfred could think of right now. Besides, if he wanted to get anywhere he had to stop treating Master Damian like an snowflake.

He headed downstairs, knowing that the earlier he did this, the better. He found Master Damian seated in front of the bat computer, doing exercises on hacking. He had ignored that Master Damian was supposed to be in bedrest, as the kid needed to do something productive, and either way, most of the time in the cave the kid remained seated instead of walking around or running around. “Master Damian,” he announced.

Immediately, Damian turned his head to look in the eye at Alfred. “Pennyworth.”

“I would like to announce that starting next week you will go to counseling Mondays and Thursdays, from 2.p.m. to 3.p.m.” stated Alfred. He had already worked the details with Mistress Lance, submitting all relevant information about Damian (the League members that had babysat Damian had submit what they had found).

Damian scoffed. “I assure you Pennyworth, what happened last patrol was a fluke on my part. It won’t happen again. I’m an outstanding tactician, therefore I need no counseling.” Off course the young master was going to take it as corporate counseling.

“I was not referring to counseling on the field, Master Damian. You have proven that you don’t need it,” reassured Alfred.

Damian became less tense. Still, he frowned in confusion. “What else would I need counseling for?”

“Emotions,” shortly answered Alfred.

Immediately, Damian’s gears started turning. Alfred knew he had miscalculated. Damian scowled at his hand. “If this is about me grabbing your hand, I won’t make the same-”

Before Master Damian could continue though, the old butler interrupted him. “Counseling isn’t because of that Master Damian. In fact, that action was a good judgement call.”

Damian frown deepened. “Then why?!” he demanded.

Alfred sighed. “It has come to my attention that you have unsorted feelings of rage and fear. Perhaps it would be beneficial to seek the advice to help you deal with them.” There was no way to deliver that in a way that didn’t cause hostility.

“I am not weak; I have no such feelings as fear! I have showed restraint; I can clearly keep my rage at bay!” yelled Damian, standing up and throwing his hands to the air.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps that’s why you are throwing a tantrum.”

Damian clenched his fists and teeth, stomping the ground with his right leg. “You can’t do that! You are not my father!”

Alfred gave Damian an unimpressed look. “I may not be your father, young man. However, I am your legal guardian as Master Bruce willed. So yes, Master Damian, I can make you go to counseling.” Damian answered by glaring daggers at him, possibly killing him in his head right now. Alfred finally added: “That would be all Master Damian. I’ll now retire to my quarters, goodbye.” Alfred waited for a reply. Off course, it didn’t come. He finally turned his back and headed upstairs.

Being the sole parent of an angry child was energy draining. He already knew that as he had taken care of Master Bruce. However, he was now older, so it was more difficult, in spite of his experience and wisdom.

…

A few minutes after Pennyworth was gone, Damian plopped back to the chair. He wanted to train, punch a bag until it broke, but he wanted to take advantage of the time confined to the manor to fully recover. He had already complicated that recuperation by running around the manor and stomping his feet. Off course he could operate normally without recuperating. However, down the line, it would just become a limitation if he didn’t take care of it now. At least the punishment fit perfectly well with recuperation. It was way easier back at the League, he just needed to use a Lazarus pit to instantly heal his wounds. But maybe he didn’t need to instantly heal, maybe he just needed a way to do his daily activities without getting in the way of his recuperation.

For the next three hours, he worked in a partial exoskeleton made of carbon fiber that would envelop his leg, support his weight, while allowing him to move with relative liberty. It was fairly simple to do, with his knowledge in engineering and anatomy, and the number of components in the Batcave. He finally started to train. The device didn’t allow him to do acrobatics, but basically everything else was on the table. He trained for just an hour, wanting to get back to completing his schedule of things to do in the week.

However, before he could resume his hacking exercise, a warning he had programmed into the bat-computer popped up. Since the death of Batman, there had been reports of missing children. They had a profile: poor, orphaned kids that lived in the north-east section of the city. The new missing report fit in that profile. He began to look again for other patterns that might give him a lead. He sighed; again, nothing.

He was becoming frustrated. If he took more time to solve the case, more kids would disappear. He knew he had to change strategies. Maybe… maybe if he looked at reports of other crimes or events around that side of the city, he would find something. He queried the reports, looking for increases in a certain type of activity that may lead him to something. Again, nothing.

He groaned in frustration. He widened the pool of reports, to include those dismissed by the police. Most of them were ridiculous or irrelevant to the case. However, there was something began catching his attention: multiple reports of corpses floating on the river. It coincided with the disappearances of kids. The police had dismissed these reports, as they hadn’t found any corpses, concluding that it had to be a prank, or an illusion based on a phenomenon happening at night. Fools. Damian hypothesized that the corpses were being collected, so that’s why the police never found them. This warranted a field investigation. He wanted to investigate with the new design. For that end, tomorrow, he would work all day and have it finished for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who have read _Batman: Streets of Gotham_ , yes, the redhead we all know is coming.


	5. The Missing Children (Part 1/2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The begining and ending sections with Colin are rewrites of parts of _Batman: Streets of Gotham_ #7 and #10 with key differences and less key differences.

Gotham was more or less cold during September. It certainly rained a lot, so it was mandatory to bring a coat with you when going out unless you wanted to catch a cold. Not that with venom it was much of a problem. Colin didn’t understand why, but he always felt hotter when he used venom. What he did understand was that the venom gave him superhuman capabilities that gave him the power to be a hero; he just had to act like one. He would never be the kind of hero that he had always wanted to be, the kind that made people happy upon their presence, but helping people would be enough for him.

So, he settled to do so, starting with his community. A lot of kids of his age had been reported disappeared. Two of them were from St. Aden’s orphanage. He had been patrolling around town, looking for suspicious people, see if he could get a lead. This time he had found someone dressed like a magician on the side of the river, fixing a tipped over car in an alley, intense rain pouring over him. Now, Colin had heard rumors of corpses on the river, so it was worth giving it a shot.

“Need any help?” he announced. Up close, the man had a bald egghead, and was quite fat.

“Oh, thanks. No need. I’m almost done. I’m late for a party with the little ones,” said the magician. Now, the nervousness in his voice was obvious. And he had a big bag to his side, big enough to fit a lot of magic tricks or a couple of corpses.

“It’s okay Houdini. Maybe you could do me a favor instead,” said the hulk, lifting the car and putting it correctly on the floor. The hat and the darkness helped to conceal a great chunk of his face, allowing him to center on controlling more the tone of his voice to maintain it neutral. “I’m trying to get to some kids myself. Seems like a lot of them had disappeared from Gotham’s orphanages.”

“That’s unfortunate,” the egg-head magician commented, his voice very tight.

“Isn’t it? You wouldn’t know about that, would you?” interrogated Abuse.

Before he could react, a crowbar hit his head, managing to disorient him. The magician immediately took off, taking the bag of probably corpses and hoping into the car. “Yeah, I think you might.” Before he managed to fully recover, he was hit by the side of the car. Abuse laid on the wet pavement, trying to take a hold of his senses. “Classic disappearing trick,” he said while getting up with both hands. Looking at the deserted alley, he remarked “I’m attending to your show.”

He ran towards the main street, tracking down the man by asking people on the street if they had seen an old brown car and where was it headed. The streets were normally deserted at that time of the night, so he found that the majority of people did remember. He finally spotted the car, taking a look at the building it was parked next to. An abandoned orphanage. When he got in, he took the precaution of being extra sneaky. There seemed to be a confrontation taking place.

“I- I can explain. I didn’t do it, I swear,” pleaded the magician. Abuse heard a loud thump, items falling on the floor. He finally peaked on the room to see a small kid holding the magician by the collar against a wall, with a sword on his throat. The boy had a somewhat dark skin, a black domino mask, black gloves, black military boots, black hood, black pants, black tunic (seriously?) and a white lined bat. A wannabe hero, basically. It came to Abuse’s attention that the right pant seemed to have something below it. He observed the room: bunkers with dead kids.

“You’d better! Or else…” the kid threatened pressing the knife against the man’s neck. The man gulped. Man, the boy was edgy as fuck, but he was threatening.

“I found the children already like that! I gather things from trash dumps to put them back together again!” explained the man.

The kid pushed him into the wall again. “They aren’t things! They are kids! Now… did you find them on the dumpster?”

“No…” replied the man, fear and sadness clear in his voice. “I was searching for parts near the river when one of the broken children floated up to me. I took him with me, but the next day another one came too… and she wasn’t alone.” The wannabe hero finally let the man go, backing up a few steps to rest his head on his arm, leaning against a bunker. “I was so sad that the kids were killed. If I gave them shelter and fixed the toys, then maybe… maybe….” Abuse felt pity for the poor man.

“You fool,” the boy began, “they are dead. Death can’t be reversed with childish artifacts.” That was insensitive. But the wannabe Batman was right, death can’t be repaired.

“I know…” the magician said. Poor man, he needs help.

The kid sighed, taking out a phone. “GCPD, come in. I’ve found 31 children’s corpses in the Rainbow House abandoned orphanage. Dispatch the appropriate vehicles and-” the kid stumbled towards the bucket, puking out his insides. He wiped out the bile off his mouth once he finished. “get here as soon as possible.” He ended the call, putting the phone away. Still kneeled, he promised: “I’ll find the bastard who did this to them. Humpty,” he called, looking towards the man. “I need you to tell me the intervals of time in which you found the corpses and where. I’ll determine the approximate position of the dumping site from that.”

“You need like a degree in geology to do such a thing,” said Humpty very confused.

“I have the equivalent of that. Now, spill!” demanded the kid.

Abuse finally headed out of the orphanage, to the pouring rain. The wannabe Batman could locate the site as fancily as he wanted. Personally, he preferred to be simple but effective. He would just wander around places upstream in the river as a child, hoping to get kidnapped.

…

Damian was poking his breakfast: scrambled eggs and bacon. He had no real appetite for either, he was just hungry for justice. However, Pennyworth was starting to glance at him worryingly, so he started giving bites to the good. Yesterday, to go out undetected, he had spiked Pennyworth’s tea to make the old man sleep deeply. The butler never suspected anything, as Damian had chosen the sleeping agent to mimic as well as possible the normal flavor of the tea. It wasn’t an enormously powerful agent either.

Pennyworth had asked him about the artifact he had on his leg. Damian explained it was meant to aid in his recovery while allowing him to do his daily activities. Also, he had asked Damian if he could go on patrol using it while remaining unharmed. Damian told him that he wouldn’t be able to use acrobatics or kick with his right leg, but the rest was on the table. To that, the butler replied “Then it would be wise to wait until you are completely recovered. You don’t know when you might need one of those moves in a tight situation.”

Damian frowned at the butler, trying to figure out what he meant by that. Wasn’t he being grounded? Why was the old man recommending him to stay at home? Maybe… maybe he hadn’t been punished. Maybe the butler had just benched him for his recovery. That would explain why the benching was timed with the time of recovery… But that was preposterous… Wasn’t it? “You didn’t ground me?”

Pennyworth sighed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last couple of days, Master Damian.” Oh, oh. Does that mean that getting wounded in the field didn’t warrant a punishment? That didn’t make any sense. “However, if you violate your recovery time by going out on patrol, I’ll ground you, Master Damian.”

The old man really had no idea. Which was weird, since Damian had started to believe that the butler had some kind of omniscience over the house. “With the partial exoskeleton, my recovery will be much faster, Pennyworth,” argued Damian, hoping to get back on patrol as soon as possible.

“I’ll check on you on Wednesday, and if your recovery is complete, you may go out,” offered Pennyworth. Damian thought it was fair and made sense, so he nodded. “Remember that you’ll attend to counseling today. We are leaving the manor at 13:30 so you may be properly dressed at that time,” announced Alfred.

Damian pouted. He didn’t want to go, but they already had been over this like five times. Pennyworth was very stubborn in making him go to this counseling. Thus, Damian resolved that he would just endure the hour of ‘counseling’, discussing at this point was pointless. He finalized his breakfast, surprised he didn’t feel a very strong urge to puke. He did his homework and headed to the cave to continue with the case. He used a bunch of meteorological and geological data, as well as security footage available and the information provided by Humpty, to narrow down the section of the river where the corpses were dumped. He managed to reduce it to a strip of no more than 100 meters. There were a bunch of apartment building in that area, as well as two abandoned warehouses. He would first check the abandoned warehouses, then the apartment buildings. He would go there as a civilian, to hopefully get captured by the culprit in the process.

Pennyworth called him for lunch, interrupting his planning process. Whatever, he would continue after the counseling. For going out he dressed in his typical black turtleneck, blue jeans, white sneakers fashion. He hoped onto the car, crossing his arms, and looking out to the window. They went to a secluded location. From there, they used the League’s teletransportation system to go to Star City. Damian learned that it had been the first time the system had been used to teleport something as big as a car. They finally arrived at the building where Lance’s office was located. After parking, they used the elevator to go to Lance’s reception. Damian had to admit, even though the building was clearly intended for peasants, the decoration was nice and well thought out. Finally, he was called by Lance to the meeting.

…

Apparently, Master Damian hadn’t talked in the whole meeting. It wasn’t unexpected, but it certainly was discouraging. At least Damian hadn’t outright called Mistress Lance a ‘Harlot’ like he did to Mistress Diana, so that was progress.

Alfred had gone to the cave to announce that dinner had been made. However, Master Damian wasn’t there and the motorcycle he had been working on had suspiciously gone missing. None of the two uniforms were missing though… that was weird. Alfred went to the computer to see the security footage, clearly seeing how Damian had gone out by himself as a civilian about an hour ago. He decided to check what the boy had been up to in the computer. He inspected the last files the young man had worked on. Apparently, he had been working on a case of missing children in the north-east section of the city.

Alfred inspected the files, seeing how the 31 of the missing children had been found dead yesterday on an orphanage. Apparently, the bodies had been dumped at the river, and had been collected by a mentally ill man trying to ‘fix’ them. Master Damian had gone through the autopsies, making a few notes about the cases. He mentioned how the cuts on the wrists and legs of some of them indicated some type of struggle, possibly a fight. Apparently, he believed there were different victimizers, adducing that the cuts on the bodies corresponded to more or less experienced fighters; in fact, he believed that every single one of them could have been killed by a different person. Finally, Alfred inspected a map with a stripe on the river called: possible area of dumping. There were two ‘x’ near the stripe. Something clicked in Alfred’s mind.

“Stupid boy,” he muttered while heading for the phone. He dialed, desperate for the other side to pick the call. Finally, they picked. “Master Clark, we have a problem again…”

…

Colin had been walking all afternoon. By now, there should be a missing report in the police. Hopefully, this abandoned warehouse was the place. The sun was setting, over the horizon, the river below it; it was beautiful, even in a creepy place like this. He spotted a kid with a black jacket, kneeling to inspect a piece of cloth. The kid looked like a rich kid, totally out of place. “Hello,” he greeted.

The kid calmly looked up at him, as if he were expecting him. However, in a moment, he seemed to be on edge. “You shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe,” he snarled in a very rude tone.

“I could say the same,” remarked Colin.

The kid stood up, leaving the piece of cloth on the dirt. He scowled at Colin. “The difference is that I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Colin raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, well, I can look out for myself too.”

The boy’s scowl deepened… somehow. “What is in this warehouse potentially killed 31 children. This is not a game.” The boy crossed his arms, seemingly waiting for Colin to turn around and go away.

Colin, off course, knew that. “Two of those children were my friends. I’ve heard that what they went through was horrible.”

The kid uncrossed his arms, looking at the river. “It was. The cuts were mostly superficial. Most of them bled to their eventual deaths. Some of them had cuts on their wrists and legs, which indicate a struggle.”

Colin looked at the kid genuinely surprised at the knowledge he had. “Is your dad a cop or something?”

The kid huffed. “You could say that.” Well, that was cryptic. Colin didn’t give it much thought though.

They stayed in silence for a full minute. Finally, Colin decided to be polite. “I’m Colin.” He extended his hand.

The other scrunched his face, inspecting the hand tended towards him. Very slowly, the kid extended his hand to meet Colin’s, giving a surprisingly firm handshake. “Damian.” That made Colin weary. The name of the antichrist. Colin hoped that this kid was genuinely a good person.

“And you can call me Buddy,” said a man coming from the side. “Hey Colin. Hey Damian. Isn’t this awesome? We just met and already we are already friends.” Yeah, no. Colin didn’t trust that creep.

Damian snorted. “I’m peeing my pants over how excited I am,” he deadpanned. Colin stifled his own snort. At least the kid could be funny.

The man was obviously annoyed, but he tried to put his softest face. “You guys look cold and hungry. You wanna eat? It doesn’t cost nothing.” Yup, red flags everywhere.

“Get out of here,” Damian whispered. Colin wasn’t getting out of anywhere.

He was more concerned with Damian’s safety. “Run. Do it.”

“My friends will show you the way,” the creep offered. Two men with guns approached them, pointing them towards the boys. Colin raised his hands, Damian kept his hands in his pockets, looking as if he was merely annoyed. “Hurry up! Zsasz needs them now!” The worst of them all.

“Hands up where I can see them!” yelled the man at Damian. Damian raised his hands as slow as he could. It came to Colin’s mind that he was provoking them. The men shoved them with the guns. “Hurry up!” It was clear that none of them were afraid, so they didn’t try to assure each other. They were driven towards small cages. “Inside meat!” said one of the big men, pushing Colin inside. Colin tried his best to act scared. Damian snorted at him, as if telling him that his acting was terrible. That shit. He was a great actor.

The other man tried to shove Damian inside the other cage. “Touch me again, and I’ll break you,” threatened Damian. Colin was worrying about how confrontational the kid was being. At this rate, he would get killed.

“Yeah, go on smartass,” the man chuckled. He attempted to push Damian towards the cage. However, Damian moved fast, impossibly so. He gave a step to the side, took the man’s arm, used the man’s momentum to flip him on his back over the floor, and once there, he broke his arm. Immediately, the kid used the man as a shield, then as a weapon.

While the boy did quick work of the criminals, Colin analyzed him. He noticed there was something bellow his broad jeans on the right leg, and something clicked. Damian finally opened his cage, taking him by the arms to raise him. “Come on! Get out of here! Call Gordon, tell him to bring a SWAT team,” ordered Damian.

“I’m staying here! I can help you! You are Batman’s ninja relative, aren’t you? Together we can bring down Zsasz! I’ll show—” he monologued while Damian to be more on edge with every word. Before he could finish, the world went black.


	6. Missing Children (Part 2/2)

“You are out of your League,” remarked Damian while gently laying Colin inside the cage. Namely, he didn’t have powers or have league training. This wasn’t a fight that was to be fought by naïve kids; it was to be fought by soldiers and weapons. He put the spare domino mask he had brought with him.

He ran towards the facility, taking out the two knifes he had brought with him. “Zsasz!” he yelled as he entered. For what Zsasz had done, Damian should kill him. Unfortunately, he had made that stupid promise to his father. Well, he was going to maim Zsasz (with the knifes it should take its time and effort), and he was going to enjoy it. “Zsasz!” he yelled once more, entering to a different room. “Zsasz! Face me you coward!” he yelled for the third time, entering to another room. It took him a second, but when he registered the surroundings, the metal net on the sides, the people in the terrace surrounding the cage above of it; he realized he was on a fighting ring.

Zsasz was in front of him, taking out his tie. “Usually a boy has to win several preliminary rounds to face me.” He began stripping his shirt, revealing the sickening scars that counted the number of victims he had. “But when Buddy told me we had such an enthusiastic player, I just had to oblige him.” He finally let his shirt fall.

Damian threw his jacket away, taking one of the League’s stances to fight with knifes. “I’ll take your hand, you sick bastard!”

Zsasz grinned. “Shut up and fight, you corpse.”

They ran towards each other. Damian ducked below Zsasz blow, and took a swing at the psycho’s stomach. Not only did the psycho somehow dodged the blow, but he had managed to scratch Damian in the back. Damian took too much time analyzing what had happened, which allowed Zsasz to take the offensive. Damian couldn’t believe this was happening. He was Damian Al Ghul-Wayne, heir to the League of Assassins and to the mantle of Batman, trained in a hundred ways to kill a man and the art of war… and he was losing to a man that wasn’t moving with strategy or pattern whatsoever. Damian realized that the man became a living part of the knife, and not the other way around.

A cut under the armpit. The crowd cheered. He couldn’t focus. Another cut on his back, then a hit. He suddenly was on the floor, a leg over his body and a hand yanking him by the hair. For the first time since the Year of Blood, he felt scared for his life. Pathetic. A man of his ability reduced by a crazy bastard. “Game over, dead kid.”

“Leave him alone!” yelled a familiar voice. Oh no, Colin. He faintly registers the crowd humiliating Colin, littering the arena.

He felt Zsasz raising, leaving him disoriented on the floor. “A bonus match, I love it,” comments Zsasz. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He was truly pathetic. He had allowed himself to be put in a position where a civilian has to risk their life to save him. “A small diversion before the main kill.”

No, he had to stand up, and fight Zsasz. For everything that his Father stood up for. For everything they fought for. He finds that his head throbs and the world turned when he tries to stand up, taking a great effort. But for these kinds of situations was his League training. He felt his head splitting, his stomach turning, his eyes bawling, and his ears throbbing, but he stood up. He had left the knifes on the floor, but it didn’t matter. He was ready to fight once more.

“… Make it fun for me,” said Zsasz, slowly creeping up towards Colin.

“Zsasz!” he yelled, catching the attention of the maniac. The man turned, shocked that Damian was up again after the beating he took. Damian rose his fists. “I’m ready for round two.” Damian didn’t feel good at all, he could barely stand up and keep himself from stumbling. But this was an everyday occurrence for him at the League. He could do this.

Zsasz smiled maniacally. “Just a sec,” he said, turning his back. He then lunged at Colin.

Damian immediately reacted, lunging from behind Zsasz. However, he stumbled to the ground. “No!” he yelled, expecting the worse outcome. He was surprised when Colin caught Zsasz’s wrist. He was more surprised when the little redhead transformed before his eyes into a venom hulk. Oh! The kid had powers.

“Bet you didn’t expect that,” the hulk remarked, smirking at Zsasz. He was now holding him in the air by the arm.

“Let go!” Zsasz demanded, he sounded horrified.

“Not a chance,” the hulk replied, crushing Zsasz’s arm. “Having fun yet?” Zsasz squealed at the force his arm was being crushed. Colin slammed Zsasz on the floor, blood splattering on the floor from his nose. “Me? I’m having a blast.” Damian snorted from the floor. That one line was good.

There was commotion in the terrace. The crowd was fleeing. No, they wouldn’t. Damian finally got up without feeling like he could fall at any moment. “The show hasn’t ended you bastards! The main fight is about to start!” He then jumped, climbing to the terrace. He blocked the exit path and started to deliver mayhem to the audience, throwing them to the fighting ring. None of them had a clue of how to fight (or for that matter, common sense), so it was really easy. At one point, he threw one of them directly to colin. “Catch!” Colin caught him with one arm and pounded him with the other.

When he had thrown everyone on the terrace to the ring, he dropped to it, having the care to land with his hands and left leg. Colin walked up to him. “That was great Da—” he cheered.

“Names!” he sneered. Seriously, what was with metas and names. Also, now he had to worry that this kid he barely knew could jeopardize his identity. Father would be so disappointed.

Colin raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh… How do I call you?”

“Ibn Al Xu’ffasch,” Damian replied, crossing his arms.

“Ibn Al what?”

Damian rolled his eyes. Americans had a serious problem with names in other languages. “Son of the Bat.” It was easier for him and them to say his name in English.

Colin’s eyes widened. “Are you really the son of Batman?” Colin inquired.

“Nooo, the son of the other bat,” he replied sarcastically while rolling his eyes.

“So, you are the son of Man-Bat,” Colin retorted. Ok, Damian had walked up to that one, but he still glared at Colin. Colin raised his arms while smirking. “Relax, I know you are the son of Batman. Your dad was so cool! He saved me once!”

Damian didn’t know how to respond, so he limited himself to nod.

“Abuse, by the way,” the other said while holding out a hand. Damian again inspected it. If it were a trap, he would totally fall at the mercy of this ‘Abuse’, but if he didn’t, he would be totally unprofessional. He decided he would trust Abuse for now.

Before he could meet the hand though, Abuse yelped in pain. Zsasz was up again and stabbing Abuse at the back. The coward. Damian lunged at him, using his left foot to kick at Zsasz and win some distance to keep Abuse from getting stabbed again. The foot landed on Zsasz face, sending him tumbling to the floor. “Are you alright?” he quizzed while taking a fighting stance towards Zsasz, putting himself between the hulk and the psycho.

“It wasn’t deep,” Abuse shrugged, pressing a hand against the wound. “I’ll live.” Good, because Damian didn’t want to worry about an injured ally while fighting the psycho.

Zsasz stood up. “Round two?” he asked while licking the blood on the blade. If that was supposed to be intimidating, it didn’t work on Damian because he just thought it was gross. Damian just signaled with his hand for Zsasz to come. Damian had already a handicap with Zsasz having only one arm available. In the brief exchange, Zsasz had been thrown again towards the floor by Damian. Zsasz stood up, touching his cheek, noticing that it was drawing blood. “How? You have no weapons.”

Damian smirked, taking a different fighting stance. “I am a weapon.” He then lunged at Zsasz. He fought like never before: without a plan, without intelligence; just instinct and reaction. He evaded Zsasz’s cut, aiming a punch for his stomach. After it connected, he combed it with a bite to the wrist, and a neck grab. Zsasz let his knife drop at the sudden pain in the wrist. He tried to kick Damian, but Damian shifted his grip to smash him against the floor. Damian then took Zsasz arm, and broke it. He did the same with his legs. Each time, Damian was satisfied by Zsasz’s yell. Finally, Damian looked him in the eye, and for the first time, maybe in his life, Zsasz was fearful. Underwhelmingly, he kicked him in the chin, knocking him out.

…

Damian was a handful. He had the most powerful superheroes of the planet looking after him, and he still manages to get into problems. Superman guessed that at least the kid had a good reason to get into a problem. A case that had killed 31 children and had disappeared 30 more was a priority. It didn’t make a good excuse though. He could’ve told anyone in the Justice League to go and investigate, but no! He had to go by himself and purposefully get captured to solve the problem.  
Superman realized he was the tired uncle, but instead of having five screaming kids, he had one mischievous nephew. A very tired uncle he was.

Superman went towards the two warehouses Damian had marked in the map. He quickly checked the first one: it was empty. He then checked the second one. What he saw, horrified him. Someone had put 32 kids in tiny cages. First, he tuned into Damian’s heartbeat, making sure the kid wasn’t in immediate danger or anything. Second, he dropped into the warehouse, destroying the ceiling in the process, noting the commotion on the other side of it. He would first free the children, and later he would deal with whatever Damian was up to. He destroyed the locks of every cage, while taking the kids in his arms and hovering them down to ground level. While doing so, the kids would strike conversation.

Like:

“Superman? I didn’t want to kill them, I swear. But he made us do it!” the ten-year-old girl in his arm lamented.

“Shh, it’s okay now, you don’t have to anymore,” soothed Superman.

So, the majority of the victims are traumatized. Sometimes however, it looked like they just had a minor inconvenience.

**Conversation 1:**

“Superman?” one of the kids in his arm scoffed. He didn’t have more than twelve. “Why didn’t Batman come?” he didn’t look too pleased to see the Metropolitan hero.

“I told you, Batman’s dead,” the girl, a 9-year-old in the other arm deadpanned.

“Batman can’t die. He is, like, a vampire,” the boy argued. Superman chuckled.

**Conversation 2:**

“What about the new little dude in town?” asked the fourteen-year-old boy.

“Oh yeah, the ninja toddler! I thought he would be the one who would save us…” commented the other teen.

Superman sighed. “Actually, he was the one to track the place down. He is on the other side on the warehouse…” he tapped into his hearing finding out Damian was saying something like ‘You fools! How does it feel to be tossed into the ring?’ “kicking ass.” The kids grinned.

It turned out, those kids were tossed the same day, so they weren’t traumatized or anything. Good. Apparently, getting kidnapped was a relatively regular occurrence in Gotham too. Not so good. Superman gave the older kids instructions to go outside and call the police, tell them to bring a SWAT team. Once the kids had escaped, Superman went towards the ring, tapping into his super hearing to observe what was going on. It looked like the fight was over.

“For a moment there I thought you would kill him,” said a grave voice in the ring.

A voice that he recognized as Damian huffed. “He deserved to die. However, I promised Father that I wouldn’t kill again. And an Al Ghul keeps their word.” Clark thanked Bruce for making Damian promise that, otherwise, there would be a lot of dead criminals in Gotham.

“Again, as in you’ve killed before,” worryingly inquired the grave voice. And that was his queue.

Before the boy could answer, he entered the ring, making as much noise as possible. The boy and the Titan turned to see Superman. “Superman,” greeted Damian, “you are late.” Superman meanwhile furrowed his eyebrows, examining the disaster the pair had made. A lot of unconscious people, some with broken bones. Definitely a lot of concussions. A man that had scars littered all over his body as in counting something laid on the floor with broken arms and legs. Superman guessed that was the ‘Mr. Zsasz’ who was behind everything. He then looked at the ninja boy, who had some cuts over his body, but nothing too bad.

He sighed. He summoned all the fury he could. “What the hell were you thinking?” he yelled, sounding like a parent who had caught their kid doing some stupid shit. The venom user seemed more intimidated than Damian, who maintained a blank expression. “You went out wounded and got purposefully captured, and you did so without any backup. That was reckless and stupid!” scolded Superman. For reasons that were beyond Superman, the hulk looked ashamed himself. Damian continued to look blankly at him. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, young man?!”

“I did what I had to,” the little assassin had the nerve to say.

“No, you didn’t! You could’ve called anyone in the Justice League to come here instead of doing so by yourself!” replied Superman, losing his patience.

The boy scoffed. “The Justice League is meant to fight higher level—”

“And that’s why I said, anyone,” Superman interrupted. “I didn’t say to call in the Justice League. I said to call an individual in it.”

Damian’s mouth snapped shut. Just when Superman thought the argument had been settled, Damian opened it once more: “It is my responsibility, not yours.”

Like Father, like son. The kid was in more ways like his father than just physical appearance. “But it wouldn’t hurt you to ask for help, now would it?”

“If I ask for help in every single little problem I have, then I will never grow,” the boy countered.

True. But it entirely missed the point. “You went against something you didn’t comprehend fully. What if it hadn’t been Zsasz. What if it had been the Joker?”

The boy tilted up his chin. “Then I would have kicked his—”

“The Joker has many times outmaneuvered your dad. It isn’t as simple as kicking his ass. Again, what would have you done if it had been the Joker?” Damian snapped his mouth shut, glaring at Clark. Funnily enough, the venom user was the most nervous of the three. Damian opened his mouth and then closed it. After a minute or so of glaring at each other, Damian broke eye contact, looking to the floor. “So?” quipped Clark.

Damian gritted his teeth. “I would probably be dead… or worse,” he finally said. Damian’s face rose again to meet Clark. Clark crossed his arms, tapped his foot, and raised an eyebrow. Damian sighed, slumping his shoulders. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

Clark doubted the last part, but he was satisfied. Clark heard the sirens. “The police have arrived, let’s go,” he ordered, making a motion for Damian to come. Damian walked outside of the ring, looking more down than Clark had ever seen him. The venom user seemed to want to say something to Damian, but he remained silent. Superman sighed and went out behind Damian.

They retrieved Damian’s motorcycle, and went to the Batcave.


	7. Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally Damian gets therapy (or something like that).

Damian was bored out of his mind. He had already done everything he had settled out to do in the few days he had been grounded. He had finally made a motorcycle that could hover and not explode on Wednesday. He had had since last Sunday the new uniform. He wasn’t quite there in hacking skills, but he had had enough of it. He had trained already, but nothing quite compared to the thrill of the field. The boredom, coupled with the increasing anxiety over the increasing crime rates in his absence, made him decide that reading news articles about himself was a good idea.

**32 Missing Children rescued from human trafficking (17/09/2002)**

> Yesterday, 32 kids were rescued by Superman from a human trafficking ring ran by Victor Zsasz.
> 
> The alleged culprit would have forced the kids to fight against each other in a tournament as a twisted form of entertainment. Sometimes these fights would be to the death, other times they weren’t. Every night, the last kid standing would fight against Zsasz to the death.
> 
> Lucius Fox, CEO of Wayne Enterprises has announced that the Thomas and Martha Wayne foundation would cover all the medical expenses of rescued victims, including those related to mental health.
> 
> One of the victims testified how Superman recognized the new Batboy – Damian scoffed at the patronizing name. – as the hero responsible for tracking down the trafficking ring.
> 
> The criminal known as Humpty Dumpty has informed the police that it was Batboy who approached him first and reported the bodies to the police. Apparently, Batboy tracked down the trafficking ring by using the places and dates the man had found the corpses floating down the river.
> 
> Testimonies from the alleged accomplices indicated that this Batboy, along with an unidentified child with the power to become a hulk, would’ve fought against Zsasz and his accomplices.
> 
> The fight must have been brutal as Zsasz has been received in Gotham’s general hospital, with a concussion and both of his arms and legs broken. The police haven’t made any declarations beyond assuring that he is stable.
> 
> On the other hand, the search for the bodies of the other 83 disappeared children hasn’t given any results yet. The Gotham Coast Guard has expanded the area of search.

It was good that the article painted him as a capable vigilante. That way it would be easier to come off as a threat, striking fear in the criminals’ hearts, reducing the crime rate. It was also nice to have your work recognized, though he didn’t do it because of that, so public opinion didn’t really matter.

**Child Hero or Child Soldier (by Vicky Vale 18/09/2002)**

> The controversial Batboy has sprung up debate, not only in Gotham, but in the U.S. in general. He is the first ‘child hero’ in America’s history. The public knows little about the boy, just like Batman. We know that he is from Arab descent, he is a relative of Batman, he maintains cordial relations with the Justice League, and he is a ninja. The lack of information leads to many questions, but the most relevant one is: Why is the Justice League involving a child in the fight against crime?
> 
> The capabilities of Batboy are undeniable. He has been reported to have subdued a dozen of heavily armed criminals without any assistance. Yesterday it was revealed that Batboy solved a case that the GCPD hadn’t been able to solve in weeks by using a novel approach. Batboy and his new buddy took down Zsasz and his accomplices while Superman had been rescuing the kids.
> 
> However, this begs the question, how does he have those abilities? The answer should be obvious: someone trained him. That someone, likely being Batman. This means that at some point of his life, Batman must have decided to train the boy for crimefighting, as his abilities far exceed what would be considered self-defense. This already brings into question the moral character of the deceased caped crusader.
> 
> Regardless of how the boy has those abilities, or the fact that the boy has those abilities, the Justice League should have never brought him into the crime-fighting world. He is a child. He can’t be more than a 12-year-old. His childhood has been and is getting sapped away by a fight he may not fully understand. This kind of injustice has word; the boy is what human rights activists call a ‘child soldier’. For what they have done, and before this situation can be normalized, the Justice League must be held accountable for this crime.

What the fuck? That was the only phrase in English that could correctly describe Damian’s feelings about this opinion column. Damian couldn’t give less about having a childhood. What crime was this crazy woman talking about? She makes a lot of assumptions, the first one being that the Justice League had brought him into the crime-fighting world; he had been fighting with his father a month prior to his dead. The public hadn’t known that, as he had been operating as a shadow rather than as a combatant. The second one, that his Father was the one who trained him. But the idea that his mother’s character was to be questioned because she trained him to be great, unlike these American children, made his blood boil. The woman was also tacitly assuming that he was being forced to be a crime fighter, which he was not. Even the idea that the Justice League had allowed him to become a crime-fighter implied that they could somehow have stopped him, which was laughable at best. Maybe Damian couldn’t take on the Justice League, but it would be a waste of their resources to attempt to stop him.

He knew it didn’t matter, that he shouldn’t concern himself with public opinion, less the one of a crazy woman. He decided that he would ignore it.

…

He had been trying to sketch a realistic portrait of Pennyworth. However, his mind kept coming back to the article by Vale. This is why he hated to be so much time out of the field: his mind tended to drift towards places it shouldn’t. He did his best to keep his mind from wandering off too much, but sometimes, he didn’t even realize it was wandering. He found himself questioning whether his mother was as good as he thought she was, after all, she had killed numerous times for money or for petty reasons like a servant speaking out of turn. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be like her anymore. Before he could go further in that train of thought, he shook his head, focusing on Pennyworth’s portrait.

…

This was the third therapy session, and just like the others, Damian refused to talk with Dinah. However, this time she had changed the strategy: instead of prompting him to talk, she would just make eye contact and wait. It seemed like it worked, as Damian for the first time directed a word to her person.

“What’s the point of this?” finally asked Damian, without breaking eye contact. She thought they had been looking at each other for a little more than 30 minutes. She simply raised an eyebrow, prompting him to explain what he meant with that question. Damian crossed his arms, huffing. “What is the point of this counseling?”

“To help you process your emotions,” Dinah replied. It was simple really. She could extend herself, but the short answer did just fine.

Damian scowled at her. “I perfectly process my emotions without your help. This is a pointless nuisance.”

Ok, finally something she could work with. She smiled lightly. “Would you like to share how you process your emotions?”

Damian looked blankly at her, as if he were inspecting her, his frown never disappearing. Dinah didn’t budge a bit during his examination. Finally, he answered with pride “I ignore them.”

Healthy as his father. The thought made her smile more. “Isn’t ignoring your emotions the opposite of processing them?”

Damian seemed to consider the notion for a moment. “Well, emotions are dumb. They make you weak. It is better to ignore them than let them control you.” 

Dinah chuckled. “That they are,” she agreed. “However, when we process emotions, we are doing the opposite than letting them control us.”

Damian furrowed his eyebrows. “Then this is pointless. I’m already not allowing them to control me,” he argued, tilting up his chin as if he had already won the argument.

“So, you would say that you haven’t allowed your rage to get the better of you?” Dinah asked. Damian’s shoulders tensed a bit, almost imperceptibly, but nonetheless, he nodded. “Alfred has informed me that you have yelled at him on multiple occasions. If not on rage, what informed those actions?”

Damian maintained a blank expression, remaining unreadable. But his shoulders were a tad more tense. He finally responded, “Alfred had been unfair to me on those occasions.”

“Aren’t you angry that Alfred has been unfair to you?” Dinah challenged.

“No,” briefly answered Damian.

Dinah smiled once again. “Really? Because I would be.”

Damian huffed, tilting his chin up once again. “Then I’m not weak like you are.”

Dinah gave that answer a thought. “Would you describe Wonder Woman as weak?” Damian’s ass had been kicked by her, so it was obvious that he wouldn’t consider her as weak.

Damian shook his head. “She is a capable warrior,” he limited to explain.

“She has shown anger throughout her career on multiple occasions. Does that make her weak?”

Damian considered the question, looking at the floor and furrowing his brows. It took a minute or so for him to come up with an answer, but he finally did. “Yes.”

“Would you consider yourself strong?” asked Dinah.

“Off course,” affirmed Damian, sounding half insulted at the question.

“Wonder Woman beat you, someone strong, fairly in a fight. What does that make her?” Dinah challenged once again.

Damian looked down again, his eyebrows scrunching to impossibly high levels. He was going to have frown marks at a noticeably young age. It took its time, but finally Damian raised his head to make eye contact again. “She is a strong woman,” he began. “But those instances when she showed anger were moments of weakness.”

“Really?” asked Dinah, without any follow-up. Damian nodded. “Do you think that standing up for yourself or for the innocents is a moment of weakness?” Dinah waited, but Damian remained silent looking at her. He wasn’t going to answer. “Is fighting against injustice a moment of weakness?” Again, Damian made no move to answer. “Is showing that you are capable a moment of weakness?” Once again, Damian made no move to answer, but he was visibly tense. “Because those were the times where Diana showed her anger. Yeah, sometimes anger can make you weak,” she acknowledged, which seemed to make Damian rise a bit in his seat, “but it doesn’t have to.”

Damian’s stare devolved into a glare. It wasn’t quite like Batman’s, but it was good. Dinah remained impassive. Finally, Damian huffed and looked away. “Whatever,” he muttered. For the rest of the session they remained silent, Damian fixed his eyes on a cat statue, seemingly trying to destroy it with his glare.

When time was up, Damian immediately stood up and left Dinah’s office without a word, just like every other time. This time however, the 10-year-old slammed the door open. Dinah shook her head. She went out behind Damian, and met Alfred, who had already stood up from his chair to meet her. Damian had apparently left the waiting room too, not even waiting for Alfred to go to the reception. “Mistress Lance. I suppose you haven’t had luck with Master Damian this time either.”

Dinah smiled warmly at the old man. “Actually, we talked this session.” At the new information, the old man’s eyes widened, visibly relaxing. “However, because of professional ethics, I can’t disclose what we talked about,” she clarified.

Alfred smiled back at her. “Off course Mistress Lance. Knowing that you’ve been making progress is enough.” Actually, she is hoping that it won’t take too long before Dinah can help Damian process his rage. “Now if you pardon me, I’m heading back to the manor before Master Damian becomes too impatient.”

“Goodbye Alfred.” With that, Alfred spun around to catch the little assassin.

…

Damian was watching TV when the political discussion he was seeing (which he thought was completely imbecilic but hilarious) was interrupted by news about hostages taken by Two-Face in the Royal Hotel. Apparently, the government had a party there, so Two-Face has taken every relevant government functionary, as well as the mayor and his cabinet, hostage. The man was demanding 500 million dollars.

Alfred could be damned with his punishment. In the last few days Damian watched helplessly as the number of crimes continued to rise with the notable exception of the north-east part of the city, which grew at a low rate. At least the days he had been patrolling, the crime had remained stable, and even decreased a bit. Damian had stuffed his anxiety over the fact until now. He wouldn’t continue to watch by the sidelines a day more. He headed to the Batcave.

He put on the pants, the tunic, the gloves, tied the shoelaces of his military boots, strapped his utility belt, veiled his katana, put on his hood—

“What do you think you are doing young man?”

-and put on his domino mask, without giving Alfred a glance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I need to layout a timeline, to make things clear.  
> 03/09/2002 - Invasion of Apokolips / Death of Batman.  
> 11/09/2002 - Damian's 'debut'. He works with Superman.  
> 12/09/2002 - Damian works with Wonder Woman.  
> 13/09/2002 - Damian works with Flash and gets injured.  
> 15/09/2002 - Damian confronts Humpty over the dead children.  
> 16/09/2002 - Damian goes for the first time to 'counseling'. Damian and Colin raid Zsasz.  
> 23/09/2002 - Two-face takes basically the city's goverment as hostage.


	8. Rage and the Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred confronts Damian, allowing Damian to reach a necessary conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, I edited a Damian's line in the first chapter to foreshadow better the internal struggle he has about his own anger. The line in question was in response to Alfred telling him that he shouldn't go out on misplaced rage. Instead of replying "There's nothing misplaced about it," like he does in the comic Secret Origins #4, he replies "I hold no rage inside me," which better reflects on this story.

The boy had completely ignored him, heading to his flying motorcycle. “Master Damian! Wait, Master Damian!” Alfred exclaimed, while following the young master.

Alfred couldn’t allow him to go out, as Damian was seriously outmatched by Two-Face. If this were a 1v1, then sure, Damian would easily win. However, Two-Face had a dozen of heavily armed goons with him. Again, if Damian went against a dozen of heavily armed criminals, then he would win. Nonetheless, Two-Face was a capable tactician and leader, and with a team with such raw power, he could take on the young man.

Damian hopped on the motorcycle, quickly turning on the engine. Alfred put himself in front of the cycle, blocking Damian’s path outside the cave. He put his hands on the handles, preventing the young man from going backwards to go around Alfred. Damian glared at the old man. “Pennyworth, move!” he ordered.

Alfred shook his head. “No, Master Damian. I won’t allow you to go—”

But Damian interrupted him. “This punishment is ridiculous! Not allowing me to go out isn’t only a punishment to myself, but it is also a punishment for Gotham! There is a hostage situation, now move!” monologued Damian.

But Alfred didn’t move, didn’t budge. After all, Alfred wasn’t doing this to enforce a punishment. “This is not about your punishment, Master Damian,” Alfred replied. This made Damian frown in confusion and anger. Damian attempted to interrupt, but Alfred didn’t allow him, raising his own voice. “You are outmatched by Two-Face, Master Damian. He is one of the most dangerous rogues in your father’s gallery. You are just a ten-year-old with too much anger.”

Damian was red. His grip on the motorcycle’s handles was so tight, that Alfred bet the boy’s knuckles were white. “If you haven’t noticed Pennyworth, I’m an assassin, a weapon, a soldier; not a child!” argued Master Damian, his voice far too loud. “And none of my decisions have been informed by rage. I am doing what my father would’ve done!”

Alfred gave a bitter laugh at the nerve of Damian. “Very well, Damian Wayne,” Damian visibly flinched at the use of his full name, “then it will be appropriate to inform you that Batman’s actions were fueled by rage over his parents’ death.”

“No!” Damian barked.

“He has admitted it himself, Master Damian.” Damian shook his head at Alfred’s argument. “Perhaps I’ll have to show you the recordings, if you don’t want to believe me,” Alfred threatened.

“You are lying!” Damian affirmed, his voice breaking at the end. “My father was the perfect warrior! He wouldn’t allow himself to be driven by emotions! Less by one as inappropriate as anger!” he argued, more to convince himself than to convince Alfred. Alfred’s heart broke at seeing the boy desperately clinging to an idealized version of his father; but that notion had to crumble, or else, Damian would commit the same errors of his father.

“Then you will accompany me to the computer, Master Damian, so I can show you,” Alfred offered.

Damian didn’t move, looking down at his motorcycle.

Damian knew he was weak. He had always let anger cloud his judgement. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he knew it was true. Rage at least kept him somewhat useful in the heat of battle, while sadness could potentially make him useless. Besides, everyone in the League showed at one point or another some type of rage; it was a tolerated weakness, a weakness even Ra’s Al Ghul sometimes showed. Meanwhile, emotions such as sadness or compassion would guarantee your death. (Feelings such as love, disgust and hate weren’t viewed as weakness, as they weren’t emotions.) Nevertheless, the ideal had always been not to have any emotions, and his father was the ideal.

What did it mean that his father let himself be guided by rage? Was it really true? Damian knew it was true, but he didn’t want to accept it, and he was being forced to. Was his father not the perfect man he thought he was?

Lance’s words finally came to his mind. Rage wasn’t necessarily a weakness. And if rage wasn’t a weakness, then his father’s actions weren’t necessarily wrong. And more importantly, his own actions weren’t necessarily wrong. Armed with this new knowledge, Damian looked up to meet Alfred’s eye.

The boy had a new determination in his eyes. “That doesn’t mean that what he did was misguided,” Damian affirmed without yelling this time. Anger still was in his voice, but this time it was more subdued.

Alfred chuckled. “I would hardly call going out as a giant bat to beat on criminals as a healthy coping mechanism,” Alfred countered.

Damian paused for a moment. “…It isn’t a coping mechanism, Pennyworth. It is a mission… regardless of whether rage serves as its foundation or not,” Damian explained, clearly figuring out what he was saying along the way. Alfred understood that the kid was having a revelation, so he didn’t intervene. “… I did what I did to Zsasz because I was angry with that monster, but I also did it because of my father’s legacy… and to protect the children of Gotham. I need to do this.”

The last part, he said it with such a conviction, with such finality, that Alfred wanted to let him go. But it was Alfred’s duty to keep the child safe. “You are outmatched, Master Damian,” he began. “No matter how important the mission is, as long as you end up badly hurt or dead, it isn’t worth pursuing.”

Damian waved him off. “If that is your concern, then you may call a Justice League member. Preferably Green Arrow, as this consists of a stealth mission,” Damian offered. Alfred was shocked. Damian was outright suggesting calling for help. He wasn’t quite admitting that he needed help, but it was progress. Damian backed off the motorcycle as Alfred loosened his grip. “You may tell him to meet me at the rooftop of the Royal Hotel in 20 minutes.” With that, Damian took off.

Alfred immediately dialed the Watchtower, requesting Green Arrow’s support.

…

It was Oliver’s turn to babysit Batman’s kid. In spite of the fact that he wasn’t really looking forward to it, the Justice League had agreed that they would take turns in this honorable duty to honor the now deceased Batman. It wasn’t that he didn’t like kids, it was that this kid had the reputation of being difficult.

“Hello, Batboy,” he said from behind the kid, who was standing on the edge of the rooftop, surveilling the city, cape flapping with the wind. There was a news helicopter in front of him, that didn’t register they were there, as they were focused on what was happening below them.

The kid turned his head to look at him, scowling. “I’m not Batboy. My name is Ibn Al Xu’ffasch, or for you westerners, Son of the Bat.”

Green Arrow raised an eyebrow. “You know kid, a code name should be short. A 4-syllables-name isn’t short,” he remarked. “I’ll stay with Batboy.” Even though Oliver couldn’t see through the mask, he was sure the kid rolled his eyes. He then noticed that there was a motorcycle parked in the roof they were standing at. He made the educated guess that it was Batboy’s motorcycle. “How did you get that up here?”

“My motorcycle can hover,” Batboy replied, while heading to the cycle.

“Batman never told us he had cycles that could fly,” Oliver commented. Batman definitely kept a lot of secrets, like the fact that he banged Talia Al Ghul when he was 18.

“That’s because he didn’t have them,” Damian replied. He took out a laptop from a pocket in the cycle, and sat on the floor next to the cycle, booting the computer up. While he was typing, he added “I made it.”

The boy had to be kidding him. Then again, the way he said it made it seem like he was not. So, Damian was a genius who invented flying motorcycles. He was going to later buy the blueprints from him and make a bigger fortune. For now, he would tease him. “You don’t have the license to drive it. As the responsible adult here, I’ll take it.”

Again, Oliver was sure Batboy rolled his eyes behind the Domino mask. “Cease your blabbering, second-grade archer. I have been driving since I was five.” Oliver was about to deliver a retort; however, Damian talked first. “Focus on the mission, Robin Hood-knockoff,” he jabbed, while turning the computer for Green Arrow to see. “We have 20 minutes before Two-Face starts to kill hostages. I’ll make it through the ventilation conducts, as my size allows me to crawl fast without being too noisy. I trust you can make it to the main door of the hall undetected.” Green Arrow nodded. “How many opponents can you take at the same time?”

“If I have time to aim properly, three. If I have little time, two,” Green Arrow declared.

Batboy didn’t seem impressed at all, just nodding at the information. “I can take two at the same time, or three in quick succession. There are a dozen men armed with semi-automatic rifles in the main hall, not counting Two-Face. I have a flash grenade; that may give us time to take down everyone.”

“It will disorient the hostages as well,” pointed out Green Arrow.

“Better disoriented than harmed or killed,” Damian replied.

Green Arrow agreed… kind of. He would protest if they had more time, but as it is, they had to compromise with the plan. “Let’s go.”

…

Arrow had taken every goon outside of the hall where the hostages had been taken. “I’m in position,” he said to the comm link, waiting for Batboy’s signal to enter the hall. He had already two kinetic (non-lethal) arrows lodged into his bow.

Suddenly, there a flash of light came from the room. That was the queue. He fired arrows on quick succession on the heads of seven goons, knocking them out. Meanwhile Batboy had taken by himself on four of them and Two-Face himself. Unfortunately for both of them, the last remaining goon had at point-blink aim the mayor. “Don’t move or I shoot him!” Everyone in the room, including all civilians, froze. Batboy’s position was quite funny as he stopped in the middle of throwing a batarang.

Fortunately for the mayor, the big crowd offered enough blind spots that allowed Commissioner Gordon (who had also been taken hostage as it was a government party) to take a handgun from one of the unconscious men and quickly shoot at the goon’s shoulder. Damian finished the job, knocking the man out with a well-placed kick.

Civilians remained frozen, even as Damian began tying up the criminals. G.A. had to tell them that they were all safe now, for them to start moving. Some of them started to talk between themselves about how panicked they were (or weren’t); others had swarmed either G.A. or Batboy to thank them. It was cute to see the kid so flustered at the gratitude, unknowing of how to react. It was also funny to see the kid getting pinched in the cheeks, just for him to get impossibly tense, swat away the hands and say “Don’t touch me H—” just to be cut off by Alfred scolding him through the comms.

Right after they had tied up the last thug, the police and entered through the door, too late to save the hostages. At least they could take the criminals to prison.

Once the police arrived, Damian walked up to Oliver. “Let’s get out of here before I have to engage in more—”

Unfortunately for Damian, he was already engaging more. The mayor and the commissioner had approached them. “Green Arrow,” said the mayor addressing Oliver, “Batboy,” he greeted addressing Damian, who scowled at the name, but didn’t say anything about it. “It is nice to finally meet the hero who saved those 32 missing kids,” continued the mayor, unfazed by Batboy’s demeanor.

“That was some really great detective work, son,” added Commissioner Gordon.

Damian frown deepened, as he remarked with disdain “I’m not your son.” Commissioner Gordon looked both surprised and contemplative at the remark.

Before Gordon could reply, a reporter announced herself. “How about a photo?”

The mayor gave his political smile. “Off course.” He extended a hand towards Damian. Damian inspected it for three seconds before giving him the handshake. To Damian’s poorly concealed surprise (he became more tense than how he was), the man took him by the elbow, looking right at the camera. The flash of the camera came. Almost immediately, the mayor dropped the handshake. “We are looking forward to work with you,” he said, looking at Damian, then at Oliver.

Damian recovered from his shock and nodded. “My method of contact is the same as Batman.”

“It has been a while since we have used the Bat-signal,” commented Commissioner Gordon.

“If that is everything, we’ll show ourselves out,” Batboy announced, turning on his heel, walking out of the room.

“Sorry, he doesn’t like social events,” excused Green Arrow, as he turned around to follow Damian. They met at the roof. As Arrow walked towards Damian who was hoping on his cycle, he commented “You know, it took two years for Batman to be able to work with the police.”

Damian completely ignored the comment. “We have work to do Arrow. The city isn’t going to save itself. Get into the cycle,” he ordered, turning on the cycle.

“With you driving?” teased Oliver, raising an eyebrow.

Damian rolled his eyes and smirked. “Fine, you can play catch up grappling with that bow of yours.” Then, he flew off the tower.

“Whatever you say, Batboy!” shouted Oliver behind him.

…

“You are late by 45 seconds, you antiquated man,” Damian jabbed, observing a drug trafficking operation below them.

“And whose fault is that?” Oliver rhetorically asked.

“Yours,” the brat replied, hopping off the ledge to disrupt the operation.

...

The police would be a complete joke after what happened that night. Not only did a ten-year-old solve pressing case that the police couldn’t, but he also rescued the government from the hostage situation. And if the police were a joke, then his administration was a joke. He had to do something with this Batboy. But the mayor would bide his time, he couldn’t attack while the public opinion was favorable for the little vigilante.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't post the next chapter until the next Monday. The following is the author doing an analysis of his own work.
> 
> Damian's character in the comics comes off, more often than not, as angry because he refuses to open up. However, Damian always being angry isn't consistent with the idea that he was intended to be Talia's perfect soldier. My solution? Make Damian aware that coming off as angry all the time is a flaw, but for the wrong reasons. This makes the conflict more interesting in my opinion for a number of reasons:
> 
> A. As of now, Damian is in denial over the fact that a lot of what he has been thaught in the League was wrong. Talia and Ra's are obviously hypocrites, as they are like angry all the time, but they have a reason: they want Damian to become an emotionless weapon, not a person. But off course, love and hate are okay, since they want him to love them and hate those who oppose the League.
> 
> B. Damian wants to detach himself completely from his emotions, however, he can't. So he settles for the next best thing: he shows only anger. This makes his insecurities stronger.
> 
> C. Damian gets to evolve to a healthier mindset while still being in a completely unhealthy mindset.
> 
> Perhaps my execution wasn't the best but eh, I'm learning.


	9. The Justice League babysits (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian thanked Colin in his own way. Damian and Simon Baz stoped a Falcone's operation. They are thanked with racism and intolerance.

Colin was playing as a goalkeeper as his vigilante life left his body drained for the day, but he still wanted to play with his friends. He had found himself turning down more matches after he became Abuse though. Notwithstanding, it wasn’t a big problem as his vigilante life was awesome, finding himself doing good for other people.

“Wilkes,” someone called from outside the gates. Colin turned, his eyes widening at the surprise of seeing Damian outside of St. Aden. He excused himself out of the match, quickly leaving the orphanage to meet the Arab boy. Damian had proven himself a hero in their few interactions, but Colin still was a bit wary because of the other’s name, the fact that he declared he had killed before and his descent (some Nuns said that Muslims were a bad bunch).

“Hello Damian,” greeted Colin, with a big smile. Remembering how things quickly went wrong when Superman arrived, he added “Are you alright?”

Damian raised an eyebrow, as he began walking away. “I wasn’t injured in the fight,” he replied, with a smartass tone.

Colin rolled his eyes but followed him anyways. “I’m not talking about injuries.” Damian gave him a funny look. “I’m talking about the scolding Superman gave you.” Damian seemed even more confused. “Even I was upset after he scolded you.”

Damian’s expression returned to a blank one, and he remained silent for a moment. Colin feared he had said something wrong. “It was justified,” finally stated Damian, very quietly. It didn’t answer to Colin’s question, but before he could ask, Damian got ahead. “You look well-adjusted. Are your injuries healing?”

Colin smiled at Damian. “I heal fast! Or well… ‘Abuse’ heals fast. Some of these-” he explained while pointing at his band-aids “-are not even necessary. I just thought they looked good.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “You have a poor taste, Wilkes.” Damian was rude. Colin thought he wasn’t teasing as nothing in his tone or face pointed to it being so.

Colin flipped the bird at Damian. Damian was unfazed by the gesture, focusing on examining Colin. The redhead felt as if he were laid bare by Damian’s eyes, like nothing could escape his sight. Colin blushed for a moment. “Where are we going?” tried Colin to defuse the tension.

“-TT- Quiet, Wilkes. You will see.” Colin felt as if he was heading to a trap. Nonetheless, he was Abuse, he could take on the trap. This was Batboy though, so Colin wasn’t sure. Before he could have second thoughts, they arrived at a garage. The door ceremoniously and painfully slowly opened, revealing a motorcycle behind it. Colin looked at Damian, a bit confused.

“I believe you may find useful a method of transportation besides running around,” the Arab explained. Colin’s eyes widened in excitement and disbelief at the realization. “I’ve taken the freedom to dub it ‘Cycle of Abuse.’ Like the Bat-Cycle, it can fly too,” he commented while tossing the keys at Colin, who almost let them fall. “It goes without saying that the garage is yours too.” Finally, Damian took out a phone and tossed it too towards Colin. This time, the boy caught it expertly. “That phone is yours too. I’ll call you if its urgent and send you an SMS if it isn’t. Rest assured, I won’t communicate unless it’s important.”

Colin blinked. “Are you bribing me into partnering with you?” asked Colin in disbelief, as it was the only plausible explanation he could come up with.

Damian scoffed. “No. I’m giving you this to settle our debt. Our potential partnership has nothing to do with that,” he clarified.

Colin smiled with a bit of smugness. “So, this is your way to say thanks for saving you,” commented Colin, trying to make Damian say the words out loud.

Damian’s face flushed. “I needed no saving!” he argued, a bit too heated. He then annexed more quietly “Nevertheless, your assistance in taking down Zsasz was appreciated.” He flushed harder. Payback for making Colin blush. Once Damian recovered his composure, he nodded at Colin, leaving the now Colin’s garage. Colin thought ‘Garage of Abuse’ was a cool name.

…

“Lantern,” acknowledged the kid without looking at him, while flying in his motorcycle.

“Ibn Al Xu’ffasch,” greeted the space cop. The boy didn’t react. Weird, since Simon thought that the young vigilante would appreciate being called the correct way. “Where are we going?” asked the Green Lantern.

The boy finally glanced at him. “We are disrupting a weapon smuggling operation from Falcone,” Ibn explained. Simon looked where they were heading towards: the harbor. The kid stayed silent for five seconds, before adding, almost too quietly to hear “The client is Al-Qaeda.”

That made things personal, for both. Although Damian hadn’t been outright accused of being a terrorist, he was implied to be a terrorist without doing anything. On Simon’s part, he was framed as a terrorist and was taken to Guantanamo Bay without any due process before the willpower ring broke him out and he managed to prove his innocence. Simon wanted to prove that he wasn’t a terrorist (because somehow people weren’t still convinced, even after everything he had done); he would bet his freedom on Damian wanting to prove the same.

They did quick work with the henchmen, taking less than ten minutes to wrap everything up. They discovered that normal weapons weren’t intended to be smuggled, but chemical weapons. The majority were big scale bombs. However, the kid seemed to pay extra attention to a container of some sort of paint. “How did Falcone’s mafia get these?” asked Simon, his blood simultaneously boiling and freezing.

“This warrants Gordon’s assistance,” stated the boy, pointedly not replying to Simon’s question. From what Simon had talked with the other League’s members, the kid was probably too proud to admit that he didn’t know. Simon didn’t see any use in making the boy admit it, so he let that slide.

Simon heard over Damian calling over the GCPD, telling them that they had discovered chemical weapons, and ordering them to bring Commissioner Gordon, without waiting to hear a reply. 20 minutes later, the Commissioner had arrived at the scene with special police corps to safely transport the weapons of mass destruction. “Commissioner Gordon,” greeted Ibn. Simon raised his hand to greet the man.

“Good Night Batboy, Green Lantern,” the man greeted back, examining Green Lantern. He then turned again to Ibn. “I came here as soon as we got your call.”

The kid nodded once. “I considered it prudent to request your assistance due to the severity of the situation. I have examined the scene but found no evidence over who may have supplied the weapons. I have also taken a sample of a compound that wasn’t part of a bomb, rather it seemed like it was intended as a coat, but the purpose isn’t certain,” explained the kid to Gordon. Suddenly, his gaze seemed to turn more intense. “I need your men to interrogate the henchmen, they may know something.” The kid’s left palm met his right fist. “I’ll interrogate Falcone.”

The Commissioner raised an eyebrow to the kid. “There is no proof that Falcone has engaged in criminal activity. If you assault or threaten him, I’ll have no choice but to bring you in,” the man explained.

Damian’s eyes clearly widened at the statement. He then lowered his hands, clenching them into fists, clearly reading himself to lash out. Simon cut him off before the kid could say anything. “We understand commissioner. We won’t do anything unlawful. Right Ibn Al Xu’ffasch?”

The Son of Batman looked at him incredulous. “Are you serious?” the kid demanded, raising his voice. The policemen halted their activities to look at the scene. “The only reason the man isn’t in jail is because the Attorney’s office is full of incompetent fools!” the kid argued. A few policemen glared at the kid, somewhat offended by his disrespectful words, while most of them were indifferent.

Simon thought hard on how to shut down the boy’s tantrum. Finally, an idea struck him, just like the ring had done the first time. “Due process is very important kid. Otherwise the government could imprison everyone they suspected of terrorist activities without any proof.” The kid’s mouth snapped shut. He continued to glare at Simon for ten seconds, before huffing, crossing his arms, and turning away. “Sorry about that,” Simon apologized, scratching the back of his head, looking at the commissioner, though the apology was to everyone in the place.

The commissioner waved him off, unbothered by the kid’s tantrum. “However, you approach this, do it from the right side of the law,” Gordon addressed to Batboy. It was ironic, considering that vigilantism was illegal, and the GCPD turned a blind eye to it because vigilantes were effective.

The boy glared at Gordon. “-TT-” Nonetheless, he nodded.

…

The rest of the night went smoothly, although the kid was obviously bothered by what happened earlier. Ibn had been rude to him throughout the patrol, going so far as to snapping at him once when Simon called him out on the excessive use of his force. “Am I supposed to let them go too?” the kid had yelled at him, while still fighting harshly.

“Maiming someone for mugging is just petty,” Simon countered. The immediate reaction of the kid was to pound a tad too hard the skull of a criminal. Still he complied in his later punches.

The patrol came burning down, when after stopping a mugging to an old lady, the lady had spat their help back at them. When Simon handed her the purse back, she had teared the purse off Simon’s hand, as if Simon were the one who had robbed her. “It is shameful how far deep this city had gone. Getting saved by terrorists.”

Simon saw red, but he allowed his willpower to temper his rage. Damian was probably seeing red too, so he was prepared to hold to kid back, should he get violent with the old lady. The kid didn’t lash out physically (thankfully), but he began shouting at her. “Why do you Americans think I’m a terrorist?! Haven’t I proven myself?! I don’t understand why you insist on linking me to them. I’m not even Muslim! And even if I were, it wouldn’t mean I’m a terrorist!”

The lady was obviously afraid of the kid getting physical, flinching back whenever the kid swung his arm, but the look of disdain never wavered. When the boy had finished and was just panting, the woman answered, “Terrorism is in your nature,” as if it was fact. The kid glared at her. He then turned away, running off the scene.

Simon glowered at the lady, madder for making the brat upset rather than what insulting him. “You are so close minded and full of hate… Even seeing the truth before your eyes, you can’t accept it,” Simon told the lady. Without waiting for a response, he went after Damian. Simon had tried to get Damian to talk about his feelings, but the boy had completely shut down, going back directly to the Bat-cave, and slamming the door of his bedroom. 

…

“Batboy is a disrespectful little brat. He called the attorneys ‘incompetent fools’,” said one of the policemen. Officer Montoya agreed with the kid, but she wasn’t going to voice her opinion out loud.

“We can’t trust someone who easily throws tantrums and disrespects the authority,” commented another one. The man in question was known for being a dirty cop, presumably allying himself with the Falcone’s. However, Montoya agreed with the statement.

“It is incredible that we are employing children,” lamented another. This one had come cleaner but was willing to turn a blind eye to the corruption of other cops. Still, Montoya agreed with him.

“It is incredible we are aligning ourselves to potential terrorists,” regretted another one.

Montoya had enough of this conversation. “Racist piece of shit,” the woman called out.

The man turned surprised at her. “You can’t be on his side,” he reproached.

“This night he stopped a smuggling operation towards Al Qaeda,” she pointed out. Most of the other cops nodded or expressed approval at the argument. Just two of the ten there remained unconvinced, including the one he was arguing with.

“You can’t be this naïve Montoya. The boy could’ve set it up,” the man argued. Montoya simply raised an eyebrow.

“Regardless of Karl’s stupid conspiracy theories,” another one cut in, emphasizing on ‘stupid’, “we have to agree, the kid shouldn’t be on the field.” Almost everyone nodded.

…

“I told the boy that the city had fallen too much since we were being saved by terrorists. The kid lashed out at me (a miracle he didn’t get violent), getting too defensive on how he wasn’t a terrorist. That’s very suspicious to me,” the old hag said. How she contacted the media so fast? Simon had no clue. How the Media were allowing the woman to say all that nonsense was beyond him (seriously, are you supposed to not get defensive when someone calls you a terrorist?). Simon just wished that they hadn’t saved the lady from the mugging.

“Things will get better ahki. It’s just a matter of time before they see us for how big our hearts are,” his sister said behind him. The woman was full of wisdom, and Simon truly loved her, but he wasn’t inclined to believe her. Instead of dwelling on that, he stood up from the couch, to help her with breakfast. As he did his best to cook scrambled eggs, he allowed himself to get motivated. He was going to will people into seeing the truth. He was going to demolish their fears.

…

Damian’s performance last night was less than stellar. He knew better. He knew better than to care for the opinion of a random old lady. He knew better than to allow himself to be affected by an ill-willed comment. He knew better than to feel sad about. He knew better. He had expected to feel angry, and he suffered it to a point, but sadness had been overwhelming.

Now, that the feeling had subdued after crying himself to sleep (if someone asked, it didn’t happen), he was ready to analyze the sample of the alleged coat-weapon. The normal analysis didn’t yield useful information. He would have to test tissue breeds in order to find anything. When he first saw that his father kept lab rats to test poisons on them, he had demanded his father to replace them with human tissue breeds. He had argued for greater fidelity of results. However, the real reason was that he didn’t want to see the rats suffer. He made his father acquire all the necessary equipment to breed and stock the tissue, having a sample of every human organ. Damian had provided his own cells.

He tested the mix against every tissue. Damian found that the chemical disrupted brain synapsis; however, it seemed to diffuse into all types of cells. This meant it was a neurotoxin; however, he would need to run tests to find out whether it was meant as a killer, paralysis or brainwashing agent. He would start by acquiring samples of brain hormones and harvesting different gate proteins, to better determine which part of the brain and what functions the compound targeted.

After running tests all day, Damian finally found out that the neurotoxin was a brainwashing agent. According to his theory, it seemed to be extremely effective, needing only a little dose to be applied before the victim would lose their agency. Due to its diffusion to every type of cell, it needed to be injected to the brain; to be more concrete, it needed to be injected on the frontal cortex. That would require a skilled neurosurgeon. He finally got a lead. He would have to leave the investigation to tomorrow, as it was time to patrol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the ending part was, like, pseudo-science, but cut me some slack, most pieces of fiction have pseudo-science, beginning with the comics. I needed to use Damian's equivalent of a PHD in Biology, since comics somehow keep forgetting that Tim Drake isn't the only genius in the Batfamily (everyone is a fucking genius in that family). In fact, Batman and Robin (2009) depicted Damian as a mechanical genius, hence the hovering Batmobile (Batcycle in this fic).
> 
> On the other hand, this is Lantern reversal too (I added the tag). This means that the first lanterns are Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz. Stewart, Rayner and Jordan won't appear in this story. I won't include Tai Pham in this particular story. He would appear in a later work in a series though. Even though this is Lantern reversal, Tai Pham isn't the first lantern, because that would mean that he is the first child hero, and Damian is the first child hero. Why Lantern reversal? Because with the themes that are explored in the work (especially with the historical time), it is more interesting to have Damian interact with Baz, rather than have him interact with Jordan or Stewart.
> 
> So anyways, a little tease of what's to come next:
> 
> Chapter 10: The Justice League babysits (Part 3)  
> Chapter 11: Batboy vs Sons of Batman  
> Chapter 12-?: Pyg's Night


	10. The Justice League babysits (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian patrols with Martian Manhunter, talks with Lucius Fox and patrols with Colin.

“Manhunter,” Batboy saluted, 2 seconds after the Martian materialized. He had just stopped a mugging. He was surprised the restrain the kid had shown during the mugging. From what he had been told, the kid was a terror. “If you try to get inside my head, I’ll burn you,” he warned. There it was. He grappled to the rooftop. J’onn followed him.

“Master Damian,” the butler from the comms started. The kid tensed a little, as the line pulled him upwards, “it is unbecoming of your part to receive someone like that. Mister J’onn—”

“—Has the powers to intrude my mind—” Damian interrupted.

“—And yet he hasn’t used them to read your mind, has he?” Alfred countered. “People do not meet you with threats on trying to kill them, Master Damian.”

Damian scoffed as he reached the rooftop, landing with a “-TT-”

“I didn’t hear you, young man. There must be interference on the comms,” the old man sarcastically commented.

Batboy turned at once to meet the Martian, glaring at him. “I apologize Martian Manhunter. I shouldn’t have given you a ‘gratuitous’ threat,” he said the gratuitous part making the quotes sign. He obviously didn’t feel any remorse.

J’onn wasn’t going to acknowledge an insincere apology, so he simply ignored it. The kid kept glaring at him, clearly expecting some reaction from the Martian. The Martian denied him of one, so the kid scoffed. “Let’s just go a—” but he cut himself off when the Bat-signal was light up in the skies. Immediately recovering from the shock, he added “to the GCPD,” hoping into his flying motorcycle.

The kid parked in the top of the W.E. building, gliding his way to the terrace of the police headquarters. “Remember to refer to the Commissioner by his title and not just by his last name, Master Damian,” Alfred told the boy as they approached the terrace.

“-TT-” The kid landed on the rooftop, rolling with the momentum. The cape folding alerted the commissioner they were there. He turned to look at the heroes, who stood at a higher ground than him. Damian dropped from the higher ground, to look up at the commissioner, who was smoking a cigar. “Commissioner Gordon,” he greeted.

“Batboy, Martian Manhunter,” the man replied. He took another sip at his cigar. “You should consider frowning less. At this rate, your face will get marked before you are twenty.”

Damian’s frown deepened as he crossed his arms. “Let’s avoid the pleasantries and get to business. Why did you call me?”

“You are a perfect copy of Batman,” Jim sighed, crushing the cigar on his heel. “A man, Denholm Jemmy, has been killed in St. Thomas church near downtown. His belly was opened, his insides used to adorn the body.” Jim passed a photo to Batboy, who inspected it. The photo was terrifying and gruesome; however, Batboy remained stoic, as if this was an everyday occurrence. J’onn kept his cool too; his time as John Jones had showed him worse scenes. In the picture, Pride was written below his body with the man’s blood. “We are afraid there’ll be at least six more victims.”

“The seven deadly sins, I see,” Damian muttered. “Do you have a file on this Denholm Jemmy?” he requested, handing the photograph back to Gordon.

Jim received the photograph, handing a file to Batboy. “Not only it has the information of Denholm, but it also has the information of every known cult in Gotham.” The commissioner turned away, to look at the reflector displaying the signal on the skies of Gotham. “You know kid, I know you are capable, but please be—” And Damian was gone when the commissioner turned at the kid again. The manhunter blinked; he hadn’t realized either that Batboy was gone. “At least any doubts that he is related to Batman are settled,” Jim mumbled.

J’onn smiled lightly, reminiscing his interactions with Batman. “Goodbye Commissioner,” he said, beginning to levitate.

“At least Non-bats have manners,” the brunette commented with a smirk. “Good night Manhunter. Keep the kid safe.” J’onn nodded, taking off.

…

“There is a blood trail inside the church,” the kid pointed out. ‘So, the man was killed inside the church, then he was hanged,’ went unsaid. They entered the church. J’onn immediately felt the residual terror inside it. The kid unpacked a sketchbook. “Any face that you identify, project it on my mind,” he ordered. An interesting approach: for all the similarities with his father, the boy had a more imaginative approach to dealing with cases. Probably to make up for his lack of experience.

J’onn consciously connected with the residual feelings of the church, watching the scene unfold before him. Some details were blurry. However, the face of the leader when he took his hood off was crystal clear. He casted the image inside of Batboy’s mind who immediately started sketching.

…

Denholm Jemmy was the successful owner of a 5-star restaurant. Apparently, the man was arrogant, treating in multiple occasions his employees and providers as beneath him. Even though this was the action of a cult, it was probably also a vendetta.

“Look for traces of fear and remain hidden,” Damian had told him.

They had gone around town, asking people related to Denholm Jemmy if they knew the man in the photo. Every time there was a negative, Damian groaned like a moody teenager. Finally, they met Lusineh Kohar, a chef which had been fired due to ‘insubordination’ (the file didn’t really explain anything). She denied knowing the man, but she had been suspiciously fearful, and when Damian had showed her the image of the man, her fear spiked. ‘Liar,’ he warned Damian telepathically.

“-TT-” the kid grumbled, pushing the woman with his shoulder out of the way. He grappled to the rooftop of the building the restaurant she was working at. “She was so nervous, that I noticed myself,” he remarked.

Martian Manhunter materialized, raising an eyebrow. “Then why did you let her go?” he puzzled.

Batboy rolled his eyes, putting his finger on his comm. “Obviously, I bugged her.”

They kept surveilling her, until she excused herself to the bathroom. It sounded like she had dialed someone. “Hello Danna… We have problems… The great leader has been identified… Batboy came with a sketch of him… I don’t know how… Hmmm, the boy seems full of wrath… Yes, he will be perfect… Great! See you later.” She hanged.

Damian crossed his arms, eyes closed. He began meditating about something. After 30 seconds, he finally opened his eyes. “I have a plan,” and J’onn had the feeling he wasn’t going to like this.

…

He was right. The kid had purposefully gotten himself abducted, by getting ‘overpowered’ in a fight against a bunch of cultists. Anyways, they brought him to the church. They gathered in a circle around the boy, who was rather annoyed than terrified. The man was speaking the typical nonsense about offering the sacrifice to get salvation or something. Finally, the man drew out a knife, preparing to plunge it at the kid’s belly. In that moment, the boy got out of his restraints, and started to knock out all cultists.

Manhunter finally materialized, using his telepathy to knock out everyone in the room. Batboy didn’t land the punch he threw, as his victim fell to the floor when he threw it. He was a bit disappointed at how easy the fight was; however, he didn’t complain or worsen his demeanor. J’onn thought it was fortunate that no candles were knocked during the fight.

They collected the evidence and called the police, leaving the place to continue the patrol.

…

At the end of the night, they arrived to the Bat-cave. The boy was obviously struggling to keep his eyelids open. Aside from the occasional jab, the kid had a remarkably good behavior. The boy looked up at him, the tiredness eroding the steel in his face. “It was wise of you not to attempt to read my mind.” Damian said it as if he knew for a fact that J’onn hadn’t invaded his head.

Jon frowned. “I could have done that without you noticing,” he pointed out.

Damian rolled his eyes. “Please, if you actually did so you would have reacted to mental images of you getting killed.” J’onn blinked. The boy was truly a menace. He continued, “On another note, we were a good team,” J’onn agreed with that. Their skills had worked in tandem during the investigations. And they didn’t get in the way of the other during a fight, so that was good. J’onn looked pleased at the compliment. “You’ve proven yourself not to be an incompetent detective, like Flash.”

“Flash isn’t a detective,” Jon corrected.

Damian frowned, clearly confused. “He works in forensics. Off course he is a detective!”

“Forensics refers mainly to determining the medical causes of death, along with other important parts of the investigation that require a lot of scientific analysis. However, they aren’t detectives,” calmly explained J’onn.

Damian maintained a blank expression for a few seconds. “That explains his poor detective skills,” was all that Damian had to say in response. The boy went to the sit on a bench. “That would be all J’onzz. You may leave.”

“Good night Damian,” J’onn replied as he fazed out of the cave.

…

“Mr. Fox,” greeted Damian, walking with a perfect posture through the spacious office to take a seat. The guard closed the door behind him. The boy had a heavy portfolio on his hand.

“Young Mister Wayne. It is great to see you. How are you?” answered Lucius, with a warm smile on his lips. He stood up to shake Damian’s hand. The boy had a good grip.

“I would like to skip the pleasantries and cut right into business,” Damian requested as he seated, though it sounded more like a demand.

“Off course,” Lucius conceded. He sat on his chair too. He worked on the computer while the boy talked.

“As you already know my father was the Batman,” Damian began as he opened his portfolio, skimming through his files. “To advance his cause, he has used W.E. enterprises might to develop technology that may aid in the war against crime.” He put some blueprints on the desk and took out his laptop, rapidly hitting the keyboard with his fingers (his nails had been taken care off, but the roughness of his hands resembled made them resemble more to the Narrows kids, than to someone of his socioeconomic status). “There’s no reason for that relation to be unilateral. After a conversation with Oliver Queen, I realized that an invention of mine could help with Wayne Enterprise’s growth.”

Lucius curiosity immediately spiked at the last statement. The boy turned his laptop to display the screen to the CEO. It was a video. The boy hit ‘Enter’ to play it. The video consisted of Damian (as Batboy) testing a flying motorcycle in the Batcave. When the video ended, Damian turned again the laptop, presumably working to show something more to him. “The blueprints I’ve laid on your desk are from this motorcycle. Most of the components are produced – or could be produced – in Wayne Enterprises. Some others may need to be provided by third parties such as Lex-Corp. The egg-head is a bastard, so I advise to begin producing our own components as soon as possible.” The kid turned his laptop again to show a table of costs of an individual cycle to Lucius.

Lucius was openly gaping at him. He knew the Wayne’s were geniuses, but he didn’t know they were to this degree. Having this kind of technology could easily increase the company’s worth in 25% (just in one year) according to his calculations. However, there were a few caveats. “You know you won’t be able to take credit for this because doing so would jeopardize your identity.”

The boy nodded. “I understand.”

“We won’t be able to launch this yet. At best, it would take three months. We have to set up an investigation to not arise suspicions from the public or the government. Finally, I don’t think launching flying motorcycles will be the most profitable course of action, for various reasons. We will have to adapt your technology towards something less open to the public,” explained Lucius Fox. He was mainly thinking on 9/11 and how flying vehicles open to the general public could be dangerous. “People don’t know Batboy has a flying motorcycle; we should better keep it that way. I advise you not to use it for the next three months, until W.E. can make a communique that we have given you one of those to aid you in crime fighting. Understood?”

The boy kept a carefully blank expression. After several seconds, he slowly nodded. With that, Damian left all relevant documents to Lucius. “That would be all,” Mister Wayne said, standing up.

“Goodbye, Young Mister Wayne,” Lucius replied, standing up too, and stretching the kid’s hand. The kid immediately turned around to leave his room. For the rest of the day, Lucius humor was great.

…

“Isn’t it your turn to babysit Batman’s son?” Simon asked to Jessica. She was currently fulfilling monitor duty in the watchtower.

She turned away from the monitors to look at him. “Apparently the deal with Alfred was modified,” she answered. Simon’s eyebrow perked at this. “The boy has acquired a new partner in Gotham City. I only have to go if I’m needed,” Jessica explained.

The papers had mentioned a kid with the power of venom. Was he the new partner to Ibn Al Xu’ffasch or were they someone else?

…

“Hello D-Batboy,” Abuse greeted, already transformed, parking his cycle next to Batboy’s one. The vigilante had knocked out some goons while he had been waiting.

“-TT- Abuse, you are late,” Batboy scoffed back. Colin took out his phone to look at the hour.

“5 minutes… Seriously?” Abuse shot back in disbelief.

“Time is of essence in crime-fighting. It could be the difference between life and death.” Colin guessed Damian was right, but like, it didn’t apply in this case. It wasn’t urgent or anything.

Abuse rolled his eyes. “So, what are we gonna do?” he asked.

“On Tuesday, I discovered a chemical weapon that’s being trafficked on Gotham. It seems to be a brainwashing agent that has to be injected on someone’s brain to make effect.” That was fucking terrifying. Abuse nodded, nonetheless. “We will alternate patrol with investigating the neurosurgeons of the city. Here,” announced Damian, throwing a small piece of technology to Colin. Damian proceeded to explain him how to use the comm link. “Let’s go!” Damian ordered, hoping to his bike, starting it.

“W-Wait!” said Abuse running to his bike and hoping on it too.

…

The scientist was escaping the facility with his files. While patrolling, they had discovered that a scientist had been synthetizing a highly addictive but deadly drug (which wasn’t related to the other case). They wanted to persue him, however, there were a bunch of robots in the way.

“Stupid Robots!” struggled out Damian, as he tried to cut his way to the scientist. It was true; they were stupid, but they had an advantage in numbers. “They are too spread out to use my bombs!” he complained. “I have no anchors to grapple to either!”

“I think I can throw a something from here to knock out the scientist!” suggested Abuse, as he teared another robot apart, and took its upper half to throw it to the scientist.

However, Damian yelled “Abuse!” Colin turned to see Damian running towards him. “Throw me!” Oh. That was a good idea. Abuse immediately dropped the robot, taking Batboy and throwing him to the scientist. The ninja landed in front of him, and with a swift movement of his katana, he knocked the man out. Then, his partner made his way to the computers, to deactivate the robots.

“We make a great team!” he cheered, making his way to Damian. He smiled widely as he said so.

“I agree,” Damian replied. Colin beamed. “However, you were lagging behind. Were the robots too much for you?”

Damian’s tone was neutral, but Colin intuited he was teasing him as his posture was relaxed. “You were like, struggling more than me.”

“You are delusional,” Damian answered, heading towards the exit.

…

“Batboy! Cut the line!” Colin ordered. They were on a steel bar a hundred feet above the ground, getting overwhelmed by fire coming from the building under construction. Batboy couldn’t cut the line with his katana; however, there had to be something in that utility belt of his that could do so.

“What? No! Are you insane?” Damian accused.

“They are getting away!” yelled Colin, looking at the van leaving with the powerful weapon they had acquired.

“We are 100 feet above the ground!” Batboy argued.

“But-” Abuse tried.

“No!”

…

After the ordeal, Abuse was angry at Batboy for not following through with his plan. His superpowered body could’ve easily saved them from the impact of the fall. But Damian didn’t want to hear. Anyways, the rest of the patrol went smoothly. His anger had subsided as it went on. Even with that little problem, he was looking forward to patrol together again.

…

In retrospect, the problem hadn’t been that little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pieces are slowly falling into place for Pyg's Night. The next chapter: Batboy vs Sons of Batman, is preceded by [Sons of Batman: Origins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27733378) which is a work in the series. It isn't necessary to read. However, I do recomend to do so if you like Duke Thomas, and want to know more about the lore of this AU.


	11. Batboy vs Sons of Batman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of plot.

Today Batboy would patrol alone.

_“If you just listened to me, then this wouldn’t have happened!”_

He had convinced Alfred to keep the Justice League as backup only, instead of default partners. It was obvious that he was more than capable to go out by himself.

_“I couldn’t give less about your ten years of assassin training!”_

Batman had been operating for 5 years in Gotham, defending her just with the support of Alfred and the police. He did so in his own terms.

_“If we are doing this, then we do this as equals or we don’t.”_

Damian hadn’t come here to make friends, he had come here to train, to perfect his skills and realize his potential.

_“I’m not a tool Damian. I’m a person. I have a goddamn say on what we do and don’t.”_

Becoming the perfect weapon would never happen if he always had someone holding his hand.

_“People aren’t tools!”_

He normally didn’t take wisdom from the bible as he didn’t believe in a god. However, Proverbs 27:17 had the right idea. He needed steel to sharpen himself.

_“They are more! Or why do you think we save them?”_

_“They are valuable beyond their usefulness!”_

Her mother had always told him not to attach himself to someone unworthy or weak.

_“I wanted us to be friends Damian.”_

To hammer the point home, his grandfather had gifted him a cat just to kill it the next day. The same day, the only friend he had made on the League had betrayed him, killing him on his sleep. He had learned a lot that day.

_“No, so that we had fun together.”_

The only question that was left unanswered that day was: who was worthy?

…

“I’m fine Pennyworth, these are just scratches,” the boy reassured the old man.

“It isn’t a scratch if it won’t stop bleeding, Master Damian,” the butler reasoned, already retrieving the supplies of the medical wing. The boy wouldn’t have these injuries if he had a partner with him. Alfred had agreed to the situation because he hadn’t been able to contact the Justice League, and Alfred had no physical way to prevent Damian from going out.

“-TT-” the young master replied but went to the Medical Wing to get treated anyways. As the butler treated the wound, Damian initiated a conversation. “I learned to treat my own wounds in the League.”

“Is that so?” inquired the butler, focused on getting the sewing right. “Is it part of the standard assassin curriculum?”

“No,” Damian replied shaking his head, though the rest of his body remained still during the procedure. “However, every assassin knows how to do so. We learnt that by ourselves.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “If that’s the case, why not teaching it?”

“Wounds are weaknesses,” shortly replied Damian. Alfred sighed. After a few seconds Damian continued. “Though, the real reason, I suspect, is that my grandfather is a senile old fool.”

Alfred was so surprised at the statement that he almost messed up the sewing. He stopped for a moment to look at Damian’s face which was completely blank. Alfred laughed, not because what Damian had said was particularly funny, but because the boy was breaking away from the League’s programming. Damian frowned at him. “I’m sorry Master Damian. It’s just that I agree with your assessment.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at him for a moment. Nonetheless, he nodded. Alfred continued treating these ‘scratches. After another moment of silence, Damian talked again. “Alfred?”

“Yes, Master Damian?”

Damian remained silent for a few seconds. “Nothing.” Alfred wouldn’t push.

…

“… they call themselves [the Sons of Batman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27733378),” reported the journalist on the TV.

Damian was angry. He crossed his arms, fuming at the screen. _Children_ were fighting crime; Damian presumed that they did so without the proper training or powers (though he would have to investigate to confirm whether that was the case). It was a recipe for disaster. More than that, they had usurped his name to do so. This could not stand. Fortunately for him, he could employ his afternoon going to the field to do some research.

And about investigations, the one about the brainwashing agent had completely failed. He had found that no neurosurgeon, active or retired, had any connections to the chemical weapons, even though he had investigated all of them thoroughly (although some of them had been involved in money laundering schemes). Abuse had suggested that maybe Damian’s analysis hadn’t been completely correct, however Damian had completely dismissed this idea by yelling at the kid. He was starting to have his doubts about that dismissal.

“Pennyworth,” he addressed as he entered the kitchen.

“Good Morning, Master Damian,” greeted the butler, wearing an apron over his suit.

“I will be going out to investigate on the afternoon,” he informed.

The butler turned to look at him in the eye. “Would you be so kind to tell me the reason?”

“I need to do field work to advance an investigation.”

Dropping the line of questioning, the butler continued. “I assume you will bring your comms with you in case there is any emergency.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Off course,” he replied, though he didn’t need them.

“Very well. Organize the dining room. The lunch is almost ready.” Damian obliged.

…

The investigation had been simple. He had gone undercover as a civilian. He went to the Kebab place that was assaulted, questioned the man over the people that had saved his business while hacking into the footage. He had some Kebab there, which were so adequate and reminded him of his home, that he promised to come back.

Something that one of the wannabe-vigilantes had said, coupled with the shared ethnicity of the assailants and the girl allowed him to deduce that she had some sort of relationship to the Latin Kingz. He dug deeper, finding the dinner that Hector Ortiz’s (one of the gangsters) family owned. No connections of the place with gang activity. However, a girl working as a waitress looked really like one of the vigilantes. He pickpocketed her cellphone, scanning through her SMSs and calls. There it was, he had the names of everyone in their group (these kids were so amateur). Apparently, they were looking for the jokerized parents of one of the family members. Damian concocted a scheme.

…

“Greetings pretenders,” said Batboy, as he stepped into the light, revealing himself. He had fooled the pretenders into coming to a Subway Station (which didn’t have good comm reception, so Alfred wouldn’t be a bother. He would have less than fifteen minutes to wrap this up though, before Alfred became worried.)

Everyone seemed to relax as they saw him. That was the opposite effect than the one he intended. “Batboy? What does Batboy want with us?” Chill, the one with a wrench and in green, asked completely dumbfounded.

“Well, if he doesn’t have a lead on Duke’s parents, he will have one coming…” Cipriani growled. Damian snorted at the attempt of a threat. “What? You think I can’t beat a toddler?” he said, becoming angrier. Chill held him back though, putting an arm in front of him.

Damian glared at him. “Dude, he is a ninja. He could totally beat your ass,” Chill tried to reason.

“He is a twerp, I can—”

“This, and usurping my name, is why I summoned you here,” Damian cut him off, giving him the wickedest glared he could.

“Usurp your name? What are you talking about?” Ortiz asked, confused and angry at the accusation. Damian felt his own rage spiking too.

“You are the son of Batman, not a random relative,” Duke asserted, looking at Damian contemplative. This simmered a bit of Batboy’s rage. Cipriani’s hostility seemed to lower too. Duke uncrossed his arms. “Look, kid, we are not asking for problems, we just want to—”

“Children going out, fighting crime, calling themselves ‘Sons of Batman’ is asking for trouble, Thomas,” he countered, sneering the surname.

Thomas pressed his lips, while Walker and Chill stifled a snort, and Cipriani and Ortiz laughed. “Dude, you are, like, eight. You can’t lecture us about vigilantism as a child,” Walker argued.

“I’m not a child!” yelled Damian.

“Sure kid,” replied Ortiz with a devious grin.

Damian glared at her. However, he recognized that the yelling wasn’t helping his case at all, so he practiced what Lance had thought him: taking deep breaths and opening and closing your palms. When he felt in more control, he finally explained. “I have been trained since birth,” the statement was taken as a joke, causing multiple reactions that enraged Damian. Still he kept his voice leveled. “I am a soldier, not a child.”

“Don’t worry, I have been training in fighting since I was in the womb,” Thomas replied, to what the rest had burst out laughing.

That was enough. Damian marched up to Thomas and swept his feet with a swift movement. The laughter died instantly, as Thomas fell headfirst to the floor.

“What the—” 

“Little twerp!” yelled Cipriani, lunging for him. Damian easily flipped the man on his back.

“You want to be vigilantes? Then prove that you are strong enough to fight. I can beat the five of you at the same time without any weapon. You don’t have to lend me the same courtesy,” he challenged, doing a backflip to retreat to a defensible position.

Thomas and Cipriani stood up, but Ortiz lunged without any backup. “My fists will be more than enough toddler!”

“-TT-” At first, Damian limited to evade Ortiz’s attacks. With a punch to the jaw, he remarked “Your technique is mediocre.”

Then came Walker: “You could at least try to land a single hit.”

Chill: “I have fought muggers better than you!”

Thomas: “You seem to be the only one with a Brain here. Use it to understand that this is futile.”

Cipriani: “The best fighter here… and still completely inept.”

Slowly, one by one they stood up again, drawing their weapons out (except for Walker). Once they were all up, they lunged at him at the same time. “Finally!” He let them try to hit him for 30 seconds, then got bored and knocked all of them out in 5 seconds flat.

Damian sighed. “That should teach them,” he mumbled, going upstairs. However, his ears picked up a faint noise behind him. He saw a figure observing him in the dark. “Show yourself!” he demanded. Instead, the figure turned around to run away. “Come back here you coward!” he yelled, running for the figure.

…

“Hey, hey,” Duke felt his head throbbing, something touching his cheek. “Hey!” he felt shaken.

“Uhhh,” he groaned, opening his eyes. He saw the blurry vision of a redhead holding him. He blinked, making out that the redhead in question was a venom monster. His adrenaline spiked, pushing the man that had been holding him, crawling away from him. “Stay away from me!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the brunette soothed with a soft voice. “I’m not going to harm you. I’m friendly.”

Duke rubbed his temples trying to remember what happened. Oh, yeah, Batboy. The little brat had knocked them all out by the looks of it. He wasn’t joking about that. The brunette was trying to wake up Dre. Duke wasn’t going to take his word outright, but he wasn’t going to be hostile either. “Who are you?”

“I’m Abuse,” the mole replied, shaking Dre. “Who are you?”

“A Son of Batman. Yellow is my codename,” Abuse hummed. “What are you doing here?” Duke interrogated, remembering that this was an abandoned subway station.

“I am looking for Batboy. He went dark an hour ago,” Abuse explained. Dre was beginning to wake up. After the initial shock of Dre, the three of them proceeded to wake up the other three. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“Oh yeah. The brat set up a trap for us to meet him here, got all pissy that we ‘usurped’ his name, got violent out of the blue, and knocked us out while he pried on how inadequate we were for crimefighting,” Duke reminisced bitterly. Duke managed to wake up Izzy, who put a hand on her head mumbling about a rematch against the toddler.

“At least he didn’t knock you out of the blue,” Abuse said with an air of resignment.

“What do you mean?” Dre inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“When we first met, he saw me depowered, so he assumed I was a helpless civilian. He knocked me out. Went against Zsasz alone. Almost got killed. I saved his ass. Zsasz stabbed me. Batboy maimed Zsasz. Then he gave me a motorcycle and a phone to thank me for saving him. We partnered for a while, but had a falling out,” Abuse recalled, smiling a bit during his story. At the end though, his smile was replaced by a frown.

Everyone was up by now. “If you aren’t his partner anymore, why are you looking for him?” Izzy asked, frowning and crossing her arms and legs.

“A favor to a mutual contact,” Abuse cryptically replied. Izzy narrowed her eyes.

“What I don’t understand is how he got a hold of our secret identities,” Dax stated, standing up to stretch.

“He is a detective. He either did so in a genius overly-convoluted way, or he did it in a genius simple way,” Abuse shrugged, standing up.

Troy had already stood up. He was brushing his clothes from the dirt. “I don’t care if the brat is a genius. He was totally uncool.”

Dre chimed in, as he practiced with his batons. “He is an asshole, that is what he is.”

Abuse chuckled, looking more adorable than the terrifying mole he was. “Yeah, he is an arrogant asshole,” he confirmed.

“A little demon,” Izzy commented.

Abuse immediately turned cold at the comment. His hypertrophied muscles became tense, his face became serious replacing the slight grin he had before, his eyes filled with severity. “He is not a demon,” he sentenced. No one there dared to challenge the affirmation, feeling the change in atmosphere. “Now, if you excuse me, I have to go,” he said, turning away, not waiting for a reply.

“What was his problem?” Izzy whispered. Some shook their heads. Duke shrugged. The others might be clueless, but Duke had an idea, though he wasn’t sure.

Okay, maybe Colin had been wary of Damian at first because of his name and ethnicity (he knew it had been stupid), and later for his true religious affiliation. However, in retrospect, Damian had shown he was not the Anti-Christ. Yes, he had claimed that people were tools; nevertheless, the boy had shown true caring a few times, so he didn’t really believe in that. Yes, he had treated Colin as an inferior rather than a partner. Yes, he was an arrogant asshole. But none of that warranted him being called a ‘demon’. Hence, Colin got mad.

…

Alfred had been worried out of his mind for Damian he had sent Colin after him. Abuse hadn’t found Damian, as he had resurfaced himself, which had costed the whole night to the metahuman. In Damian’s defense, he had discovered a plot to bomb mayor landmarks with lots of people in them. He didn’t know how to disarm bombs (something he would correct), so he worked extra hard to prevent them from getting armed. However, he had failed with one, so he raced to the GCPD to deliver the bomb to them so that it could get disarmed. Some policeman commented about the vigilante doing something reckless, but Damian didn’t care. He got the job done.

Damian was ready to question his analysis about the chemical weapon. He reviewed his notes, multiple times, but there were no discrepancies in them. The chemical must act as Damian had supposed to. Then, where was the error? He reviewed the police file about the case. A number of chemicals had been found, some inside the bombs, two outside of them. The brainwashing agent was one of them, the second was sulfuric acid. Why sulfuric acid? It wasn’t particularly difficult to obtain, and it would serve to what, burn people’s skin?

Skin. The compound diffused through every kind of tissue. If it were applied in sufficient quantities, it could be delivered in a douse through the forehead. Damian was officially an idiot. His mother would have him punished with 200 lashes at least for that kind of oversight. With a new direction for the investigation, maybe he could finally put the case at rest.

October 03/2002. 03:12 p.m.

The Sons of Batman was not even a movement yet. However, she got inspired by these kids and Batboy to stand up to the robber of the store she was buying a coke from. In the middle of the assault, she had struggled with the assailant for the gun. When the gun fired, it didn’t hit the mugger or the girl; no, it hit the store owner. After getting arrested, she confessed to everything, including why she had believed herself to be a hero.

…

The mayor had his pretext. He called a press conference. “It was an error from this administration to endorse Batboy’s vigilantism and aligning ourselves with it. As it was seen today, Batboy’s actions have inspired recklessness in our youth, causing them to make decisions that not only endanger themselves, but those around them. Foolish, since our police can protect this city by themselves. Therefore, I have issued a decree in hopes of solving this situation before it gets out of control: from now on, all vigilantism, and vigilantism symbols such as the bat are forbidden. This decree is effective immediately.” The press conference went wild, everyone having their own question of the 180° turn the administration took. Politics 101: Find a scapegoat and kill it to save yourself.

…

“Finally, the mayor got hit with some common sense. We won’t have to work again with toddlers!” cheered the policeman besides her. Almost everyone was smiling at the good news; however, she wasn’t sure if it had been the correct decision. It seemed rushed and rash.

“Yeah, kids should be playing. Work should be left to the professionals,” one of them commented. At least Montoya agreed to that.

Out of nowhere, they heard an explosion outside of the building, which noticeably shook the headquarters. There was commotion downstairs. People yelling in pain. Guns shooting. When they arrived at the scene, guns out, the scene was terrifying: cops with their heads burning, a big fat mole pounding everyone around them, and a three bodies freak kicking everyone asses. There was a gas all over the place, which she had assumed at first it was smoke, until colors started to explode all over the place. It was a hallucinogen. And the GCPD was transformed into a sick joke of a circus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes Duke is older in this fic. That's not how it normally goes, but I believe this is for the best. We are Robin is such a cool idea, and I didn't want it to go (completely) to waste.
> 
> Anyways, if you didn't remember, the mayor has been waiting to do this since the encounter with Two-Face. Why? Because his administration is incompetent, and the police in Gotham is incompetent, and he doesn't want to be seen as incompetent.
> 
> Next Chapter: Pyg's Night (1/?).


	12. Pyg's Night (Part 1 / 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chekov's guns start getting fired all over the place.

Damian was working as usual. The night two days ago was almost a disaster owing to his lack of training in defusing a bomb. His mother hadn’t appeared yet, so he couldn’t do his usual success or die training as he wasn’t sure how long it would take before he could be brought to a Lazarus Pit after dying if he were to fail. Hell was real, and he barely avoided spending time on it on his last and only death. So, he trained in defusing bombs, making them very painful with non-lethal neurotoxins. He failed that one time, and he almost cried from the pain inflicted for 30 minutes. Shameful.

He was defusing the 30th bomb (out of 50), before he cancelled the exercise after hearing that he had been outlawed by the mayor through pretzel logic. It had been exactly one month since the death of Father, and Damian had allowed Batman’s legacy (the work of two years) to crumble below the naivety of pretenders. He didn’t feel like a worthy heir to the mantle of Batman at all.

Before he could overthink it though, an attack on the GCPD headquarters was breaking news. Him getting outlawed meant that the cops wouldn’t be after him. Nevertheless, having a common enemy meant that until the enemy had been dealt with, he wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Damian geared up in his all-black attire, hoping onto his motorcycle and accelerating right away. “Pennyworth, I’m heading to deal with an attack on the GCPD,” Damian announced through his commlink, speeding through the highways of Gotham.

“Be careful Master Damian. It seems like the enemy is powerful enough to execute a successful attack where most of the police forces are gathered,” Alfred soundly advised through the link.

“I’m not an amateur Alfred! I know what I’m doing!” Damian replied, obviously offended that Alfred believed that he needed to hear that advice. He accelerated, calculating that he would reach the quarters in seven minutes.

…

Colin had been walking on the street alone, which was a fairly common thing to do for a ten-year-old in the north-east. He passed in front of a TV shop when the mayor was giving his speech about formally outlawing vigilantism. Fuck. He stopped to stare at the screens.

He didn’t wear a bat on his chest or on any part of his body, but he was a vigilante. He wasn’t as well-known as Batboy, but due to his week working with him, they had completed some tasks with the help of the GCPD. Now that they were outlaws, they would be at odds with them, which meant that it would be way more difficult to do their jobs. Batman had to deal with that during the start of his career; it wasn’t a new development, but it was unexpected.

He was sucked out of his thoughts when the GCPD quarters were announced to be attacked.

He knew it wasn’t convenient to go. However, from what he had collected, Batman had helped the GCPD multiple times despite their hostilities. He was sure that every member of the Justice League would’ve done the same. What kind of hero would he be if he didn’t help the police? With that thought in mind, he rushed towards the Garage of Abuse.

…

Riko hadn’t been discharged yet, needing to stay on her bed for two more days. Duke was torn between spending the afternoon with her and going to Troy’s match. They had reached a compromise: today Duke would go to Troy’s match, but tomorrow he would bring all their friends to hang on Riko’s bedroom.

The match had just ended (Troy aced it), when rumors of an attack on the GCPD arrived to their ears. They looked at each other, as if by looking at each other’s faces they could decide whether the rumors were true or not. Their starring (sort of) conversation was shot down when some of their phones vibrated at the same time. They gave each other worried looks, while taking their phones out to see what happened. The SMS came from an unknown number “Don’t come,” was all that it said.

Duke’s left eye twitched after analyzing the text. He sighed, putting the phone back on his pocket when realized that everyone was staring at him expectantly, Dre with arms crossed, while Dax maintained a relaxed posture and Izzy held her arm asking him ‘So?’ with it. “Batboy. This confirms that the GCPD is under attack. It seems like he doesn’t want us to get in the way,” Duke explained.

Dre groaned and Izzy rolled her eyes. “Are we seriously going to follow the orders of a toddler?” Dre asked.

“Man, it is an attack on the GCPD headquarters. It is way out of our league,” Dax reasoned.

“If we don’t challenge ourselves then we will never get on a higher league!” Dre argued.

“Steps, not leaps,” Dax countered.

In the end, they decided not to go. They would go and celebrate with Roy’s team in a bar that was 5 blocks away, nearby the Metropolitan Bank (Gotham’s branch).

…

Batboy parked his motorcycle in an alley nearby the headquarters. He entered through the front door, after taking note of how the entrance to the building had been blown up. As he entered, he realized how big of a disaster this was: at least 25 policemen hurt or killed. Some of them had their heads burning, screaming in agony for someone to help. Judging from the color of the flame, the compound had to be phosphorus; Damian only needed a normal extinctor to help.

He immediately noticed the presence of a gas inside the building, taking out his rebreather before he could breathe more of it. He looked for an extinctor, using it on the policemen that were screaming. Someone tried to sneak up behind it. He used the extinctor to hit them in the leg, turning to see a man with a flame on the face but not in pain. He put out the fire anyways. The man tried to touch him, but with a swift upward swing of the metal container, Damian knocked him out.

He continued advancing, stopping when he spotted the silhouette of a man… or rather, three, back-to-back in a circle. They weren’t using any rebreathers, but they seemed to be in all their senses unlike the policemen. That meant they had immunity to this gas. That coupled with blocking the way and the description Alfred gave of the attackers meant they were hostiles.

Damian lunged at them with a flying kick, dropping the extinctor behind him. The man in the rear lifted them on his back, allowing them to deflect and launch him against the wall, cracking it. Damian barely evaded the kick one of them threw, unsheathing his blade as he jumped above the leg. Their bodies were large, giving them good range, but with his katana, Damian had a longer one.

They traded blows. The three men worked like a well-oiled machine, as if they weren’t three different people but just one with 6 arms and legs. The positions they left Damian in didn’t allow him to use his blade with enough space to cut. Even though they didn’t hit Batboy, it was a challenge. He hadn’t had a real challenge since he became Batboy (fight-wise). An assassin wasn’t supposed to have fun; however, he was enjoying himself.

It came to a crash though when a (really) fat woman – no, man, came from where the team was blocking the way. “We are done here, make sure that the boy doesn’t follow us.”

“Yes, Big Top,” one of them said. Like hell he was letting them escape.

He lunged at the trio, swinging to end the fight in that exchange, but just like the first time, he was thrown into a wall (although this time he was able to correctly cushion the impact). As he became more and more desperate in his offensive, Big Top exited through the main door. She managed to escape, even with her slow speed. One minute after his exit, Damian tried a risky closing, which was met with a kick to his belly that sent him rolling on the floor.

It took him ten seconds to catch his breath. When he looked over, the trio had already escaped the building. Dammit, he had to pursue immediately. He got up, ignoring the mild pain on his stomach. He was met by policemen, with rebreathers, pointing guns towards him. “Move fools! They are going to escape!” he yelled, reaching his utility belt as he did so.

“We’ve been given orders to capture you for vigilantism. Stand down!” one of them explained.

“While we are having this standoff, the true criminals are scaping!” Damian tried, but the police didn’t seem to care, repeating ‘Stand down!’.

Three lightly armed men. Damian threw a batarang to the hand of a policeman, piercing through it, making the official drop his gun. Two left. As he did so, Damian dashed to his left, dodging the shots of the police. One of them hit a fellow officer on her shoulder, making him immediately holster his weapon. Damian rushed to the other one, sweeping his leg, combining it with a punch to the chin. One to go… no, he could escape now. He ducked under the policeman that tried to grab him, making his run for the main entrance of the building.

…

Abuse arrived in time to see a very fat man with a tutu get out the headquarters. Abuse noticed how there was a news helicopter, pointing towards the entrance of the building, capturing how the man was escaping (?) from the scene. The man walked over the car that had parked in front of the headquarters. As he opened the door, Abuse stopped him.

“You weren’t involved in the attack, were you?” Abuse asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

The answer was an elbow to his face. Abuse shook his head, raising his fists, ready for a fight in the middle of the street. The were no cars passing by, after the mayor’s office had probably ordered to evacuate the area. He had to go between the cracks of a blockage, beeping at the enforcers to get in. The light of the news helicopter formed an imaginary fighting ring. The man had two crowbars, holding them on each hand, with an open posture.

Abuse was the first to dive into the fight, with a punch. He was met with a grap and a knee to his stomach, then a punch to his face. The man had the same strength as a venom user. On top of that, he had a better technique; every blow from Abuse was met by a counter.

“Hurry up Big Top!” ordered a man (one of three) behind him, getting into the passenger seat of the car.

Colin tasted blood on his mouth. He was tired and his body was in pain. He decided to take a defensive stance, making the other mole take the initiative. The man lunged at him with a crowbar; Colin ducked, grabbing the man’s hand, towing him towards Abuse, and punching him in the nose. Finally, he landed a blow. The euphoria was cut short when Abuse got hit multiple times with the crowbars. “That. Wasn’t. Nice.” The man scolded as he injured Abuse.

Abuse fell on the floor, barely managing to stay concentrated enough to maintain the venom form. Fuck. He had a concussion. Big Top raised his crowbars, preparing to deal the finishing blow. Colin thought he was going to die. He prayed to God, to forgive all his sins, to take care of his friends. When Big Top was about to swing, the sound of tin folding came from behind Big Top, then on his head from behind her.

The figure that delivered the kick landed, giving his back to him. “Abuse, can you get up?” Batboy. Thank God.

Colin tried to get up, but he couldn’t. “No…” he answered. Batboy took something out of his utility belt, throwing it at his assaulter.  
Turning fast, he gently put something on his face. “You can depower now. I’ve put a mask on your face.”

Colin finally let go of his venom form. He felt getting raised from the floor, then getting carried away on a shoulder. It could’ve taken only one second, or one minute, but he found himself sitting on a bike, laying against another body which had him stay between both of his arms during the ride. “Wilkes, I need you to stay up. Pennyworth, prepare the medical wing.” Silence, probably Alfred talking. “Abuse is injured, Pennyworth; I can’t deal with a bank heist right now.” Silence again. “Dammit. I’m heading there. Abuse, medical attention will have to wait, something important arose. Don’t be incompetent and stay up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting before. I didn't feel inspired enough to write a chapter with a good level of quality, so I waited until I felt I could. I hope you believe the wait was worth it.


	13. Pyg's Night (Part 2 / 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, 80% character development and action, 20% torture and plot.

The normal thing to do for Troy would have been to just bring his girlfriend; it wasn’t a welcomed development by his team to bring four of his new friends. That meant, they were quickly kicked out by them, while scolding Troy for inviting all of them. They all felt humiliated after what happened there, at least enough for Dre to almost get into a fist fight with them. Daxton had to drag him out by the shoulders.

“Fuck ‘em,” Dre mumbled, as they walked towards… they didn’t know where they were really going.

“I know man, but getting into a fight wouldn’t have helped us,” Daxton replied, slouching his shoulders a tiny bit.

“Not to mention, it would’ve sabotaged Troy’s relationship with his team,” Duke pointed out. Dre’s eyes twitched at the realization.

“His team are assholes anyways,” Izzy commented.

They remained silent for like a minute. Their silence was broken off when they heard gunshots from the direction they were coming from. They turned to see the Bank getting overrun by heavily armed goons. There was at least a dozen of them. Dre ran towards the Bank, everyone immediately followed suit.

“Dre, wait!” Daxton shouted. However, Andre didn’t listen, running way faster than Daxton could. For Duke it wasn’t a problem though; he was the most athletic of them all, allowing him to catch up with Dre and tackle him.

“What’s your problem man?! Let me go!” He tried, pushing Duke’s head after they both fell to the floor.

“We need a plan!” Izzy explained with authority after they caught up with both. That made Dre immediately calm down and stop shoving Duke away. Duke let him go and stood up with the help of Izzy, while Dre did the same with Dax’s assistance.

They were 50 meters away from the goons at the Bank door. They were lucky that the goons had been occupied with overrunning the place, or else they would’ve been spotted. Quickly they took cover on the corner of the street. “They are Falcone’s men,” finally explained Dre, his voice full of disdain. Dax ears perked, his eyes becoming understanding ones. He put a hand on Dre’s shoulder. Izzy and Duke eyed each other, confused at the exchange.

Still, Duke took the leadership. “First, we need to change,” Duke indicated. They started to bring their uniforms on their backpacks, after one day they almost blew their cover when they stopped a mugging. They climbed to the roof of a nearby building. There they changed, putting on their usual gear. Suddenly, Duke’s phone rang; it was Troy.

Duke put the cellphone on speaker mode. “Troy, are you alright?” Izzy worriedly asked.

“I’m fine Mom,” the other one said without a hint of sarcasm. Right, it would be suspicious if he called his friends instead of his family. The sounds on the background indicated there was commotion on the locale. “The Bank in the front is being assaulted by a dozen men led by a Toad. And yes Mom, I’m serious about the Toad.”

They looked at each other. Duke shrugged. Killer Croc was a thing, so not as crazy as it seems. “Stay there until we take out the goons at the entrance,” he ordered.

“Yes, Mom I will be careful,” Troy replied.

…

Duke decided they would enter the Bank first and make their way to the entrance. They entered through the windows of the women’s bathroom at the first floor. Izzy used a mirror to check the adjacent hallway for goons. They went towards the entrance, checking with the mirror for goons in the room. Unfortunately, they had a hostage situation: both clients and employees were huddled on a circle with only two goons guarding them.

If they didn’t want to alert the people on the entrance or the rest of the building, they would have to take them down silently, without a shot fired. This time Dax was the one who had an idea. He had been researching how to make a grappling hook. On his research of miniaturized powerful motors, he came up with a silent not so powerful one. That coupled with silent tires made for a silent remote vehicle. He tied a long rope to the remote vehicle, then made it circle around the legs of the goons. Some of the hostages noticed this, looking bewildered and confused at what was happening. When one of the goons realized something was happening it was already too late; the four vigilantes jointly pulled the rope making them fall on their heads. Too confused to counterattack, they were easily knocked out.

They made signs for the hostages to remain silent, pointing at the goons outside. The hostages remained compliant, although some of them seemed apprehensive. One of them had taken Duke’s hand to prevent him from approaching the goons outside from behind. Duke tried to yank his hand away, but the woman was keen on not letting him go. Not that it mattered since Dre and Izzy had already approached the two-armed men outside, silently taking them down. Then they made signs for the hostages to get out of the building quietly.

Except for the woman keeping Duke in place, the hostages escaped the building. “Lady,” finally said Duke, “please let me go.”

“You could have hurt yourselves or anyone in this room,” the woman scolded, whisper-shouting.

Duke blinked. “Yeah, but we haven’t. So—”

“This recklessness is exactly what got you outlawed.”

Wait. “Outlawed?” Duke asked.

“Today, the mayor formally outlawed vigilantism after one of you got a store owner killed,” she replied.

“We didn’t get a store owner killed,” or at least, Duke didn’t know of any such event. “All of our missions have been successes.”

“I’m not referring to you your team. I’m referring to kid vigilantes!”

Duke was really confused. “Did Batboy get someone killed?” he genuinely asked. He felt both hopeful and grim about the prospect. Duke realized, it wasn’t appropriate to feel that way, immediately feeling guilty about it.

“No, not Batboy. I’m referring to a girl that was in a store in the middle of a mugging and tried to be the hero. Her actions led to the death of the store owner.”

“Wait. So, a random girl tries to stop a mugging and we all get the blame for that?”

“You are all part of the same group.”

Duke finally yanked his hand away with force. “No, we are not.”

Before the argument could continue though, Troy walked through the door, already changed into his uniform. “Let’s go Yellow,” he said. Duke turned away from the lady, leading the way inside the bank. The Lady called behind them for them to stop. They didn’t listen to her, continuing their way.

…

Stupid kids. Apparently, they got themselves in a dire situation inside the Metropolitan Bank. It was worsened by the fact that Damian needed to get Wilkes medical attention, as he was showing signs of a concussion; that could be bad, especially to those without his assassin training. He didn’t want to leave Abuse alone in such a state. Finally, he had an idea. “Alfred, drive to the Bank and pick-up Abuse while I deal with the situation there.”

“Already doing that sir,” Alfred replied.

“-TT-” Damian hadn’t been his best this night and he knew it. Alfred’s remark about already doing it cemented the idea that Batboy was unacceptably slow tonight. He had to get his head in the field.

“Thanks,” Wilkes commented. He was leaning against Damian, only held in place on the Cycle of Abuse (Damian had taken that one since it was closer to them than the Black Bird, which was also hidden unlike the Cycle) because Damian’s arms prevented him from falling.

“Shut up,” he said, but quickly realized that it was good for the red head if he kept talking, as to keep him up. “For what?” Damian finally asked, genuinely curious of what the boy meant.

“Saving me, or well, saving ‘Abuse’,” Colin replied.

“It is my duty,” Damian said, in a very matter-of-fact way.

“Still, thanks.” It was weird, he had never been thanked before for doing his work. After all, it was his responsibility, and because it was a responsibility, it wasn’t a favor.

“You make no sense. The impact on your head had to be hard,” Damian commented, genuinely worried about Wilkes’ concussion.

Wilkes groaned. “Stop searching reasons for my gratitude and just accept it!” he said, squirming a bit.

“Stop moving Wilkes, you will fall!”

“Not until you accept it!”

“This is ridiculous!”

“Accept it!”

“Fine! I accept your gratitude.”

Wilkes finally stopped squirming. Resting his head on Damian’s shoulder. “Didn’t kill ya,” he remarked, not sounding annoyed but rather smug.

The rest of the way they remained silent. When they arrived at the Bank, Damian heard shots inside. He left the Cycle on an alley, besides Wilkes, who he sat against the cold floor and wall. “Do me a favor, and don’t get yourself kidnapped,” Damian told him before going away.

“Off course,” the other one said while rolling his eyes.

…

How did they manage to get themselves in this situation? The answer, they had taken on a task far too difficult for them. Off course, Duke tried to surrender. However, “Mr. Toad doesn’t take prisoners!”

They were outmatched, taking cover behind a thick wall, under some heavy fire. They couldn’t peek around the corner and strike the men, who were approaching them, because if they did so they would be met with bullets. They had already retreated a bunch, and there wasn’t any more a clear path to retreat without being met with bullets.

“The only way is to dash towards the next cover and continue,” Izzy told them.

The next cover and the current one had three meters of space between them. They all had to jump at the same time to the next one to continue their escape. The armed men were less than five seconds away. Duke’s heart was beating on his ears. They all took the impulse they could to roll to the next cover. They all jumped. Then continued running towards a new cover that would give them some breathing space. When they caught their breath Izzy asked, “Where’s Troy?”

The realization dawned on them; Troy didn’t make it. He had been caught in the fire. They couldn’t dwell on that as they heard the men approaching. The next gap was too wide, chances were that more than one of them would die. Dax and Izzy froze, while Duke and Dre turned around to face the armed men; at least they would go away fighting. Duke already had a life-or-death situation, that allowed him not to freeze, even though he was shaking from fear. Dre was shaking less, nonetheless, shaking.

When the shadow of the pursuing man had been too near, they heard a too loud croak. Then bursts of shots. Then cries of agony, more bursts of shots, more cries of agony. Finally, the man of the shadow walked backwards to the corner, revealing himself to the group without shooting them, clearly stunned. A black figure pounced on him, breaking his arm. It was Batboy, and he seemed really pissed.

Batboy, eyed them and immediately turned away, walking back toward where he came from. When Duke managed to get out of the shock, he followed him. The kid was walking towards Mr. Toad, who had his arm recently amputated, trying to stop the bleeding coming from his shoulder. It was horrifying to see the blood pool besides him, and the arm just laying around there. When Duke remembered that the man was responsible for his friend’s death, it wasn’t that horrifying. Batboy took the criminal by the collar.

“You are a low-level drug dealer, why did you rob a bank?” he asked, neutral in his tone. When the toad remained silent, he nailed his katana on the man’s leg, earning another croak of pain. “I’m not asking again,” he added, completely neutral.

“Mr. Toad’s tongue isn’t to talk,” the hybrid finally answered. “It is to attack!” After saying so, he threw his tongue at the kid, enveloping it around the boy’s neck, strangling the vigilante. While the kid put his hands around the tongue, dropping his katana and struggling to break free, the toad stopped holding onto the hole on his shoulder, letting a bunch of blood drop, to take a knife out of his pocket.

The kid seeing this did the same, stabbing the man’s tongue before the other could stab him. Mr. Toad let go of the kid, his tongue snapping back to his mouth. Batboy kicked him in the stomach, making him drop to his knees, while breaking the man’s wrist, making him let go of the knife, while yelping in pain. Batboy took this as an opportunity to introduce his other hand in the hybrid’s mouth and yanking his tongue out of it. The man was panting and crying, looking at Batboy fearfully. “If that’s the case, then I will have no use in it.” Mr. Toad’s eyes widened at the statement. “Do we have an understanding?” Batboy asked. After Mr. Toad didn’t answer, his hand grabbing the man’s wrist let go of it to take out another knife. He put the knife next to the tongue. “Do you understand?” he said as he pressed it.

Mr. Toad slowly nodded. The Arab let go of the tongue, instantly pulling the man’s head with his free hand and putting the knife on his neck. The Toad gulped. “My Boss sent me here to retrieve some documents. I swear, I don’t know what they are for,” he hastily explained.

“Where are those documents?” Batboy growled.

“I-I have them in my Bag,” the Toad replied. The kid with one hand yanked the bag away of the Toad, still pressing the knife at the criminal. Scanning the content. He opened it, growing pale as he scanned the papers.

“Why were those documents in this vault?” the boy asked. He sounded confused (?) Although it was difficult to tell.

“I don’t know,” the other replied. The kid pressed the knife. “I really don’t know!” he pleaded. The kid stopped pressing. The blood from the man’s severed arm kept dripping.

“Who’s your boss?” Batboy asked.

“He calls himself Dr. Pyg,” the Toad replied.

“That isn’t helpful!” the other one shouted, loosing his patience. The vigilante pressed the knife as he did so.

“He is a very skilled drug synthesizer,” the Toad explained. The kid pressed harder the knife, drawing blood from the amphibian skin. “He uses that drug to brainwash people and transform them into his minions. He calls them Dollotrons! He is obsessed with transforming those Dollotrons bodies to achieve what he believes is perfection,” the man explains.

The kid waited a few seconds glancing at the Toad. “Fuck,” he mumbled, dropping the knife and bag on the floor, as he used both hands to knock out the criminal. He then dropped something besides the man’s bleeding shoulder; foam grew out of it, which stopped the bleeding.

The five—No, now four of them just watched as the scene unfolded. Duke felt a lot of things right now. He was genuinely scared, felt both sad and angry, but also oddly satisfied; his hatred and annoyance for the kid had mellowed into gratitude and admiration, with a pang of weariness. Duke’s heart was a mess right now, and he didn’t know what to make of it or where to start.

The kid picked up every single item he had dropped on the floor. When he finished, he finally gave a proper look to the four of them. His gaze was intense, his muscles tense, his face enraged. “I told you not to stop with this vigilantism nonsense! Look where it got you! One of you is dead!” he righteously yelled at them.

Unlike last time, they didn’t try to argue back.

“You took my family’s name – my name – and tarnished it by tainting it with the blood of someone. Worse of all, an innocent,” the kid monologued.

Dre frowned. “We didn’t kill that guy on the store! You can’t blame us!” he replied back. Everyone in the group was probably reminiscing of what happened earlier with that lady.

“I’m not referring to that! I’m referring to Walker! He was a stupid idealistic kid who died using this symbol!” he exclaimed, putting a hand on his chest. Suddenly, everyone understood. “However, yes, what happened there was unfortunate. Not only did the store owner die, but now the police forces are after me too! All because a bunch of idealistic kids without training or powers decided to fight crime… As of now, you are a liability.”

They all remained silent, ashamed, guilty of what just happened. “We just wanted to make a difference,” Izzy explained, lower than her usual tone.

“You can’t make a difference if you are dead!” Batboy yelled bewildered. They all remained silent for a good minute. Finally, Batboy walked past them. “The police are entering the place. If they catch you, you are going to jail.” With that, the kid ran off and disappeared on the corner.

Because of the police raid, they couldn’t go to see Troy’s body. In fact, all the way out they were silent. Even a good twenty minutes on the roof of a building just hanging out was silent. Duke just relived all his moments with Troy. The talks he had with him about the World of Ideas or Kantian Ethics; the talks about American Football and how Duke wasn’t interested in one bit about the sport but cared about Troy’s hobbies, so he listened; how Troy would’ve saved him that one time he got a concussion by carrying him out of the scene, and then told him that he was fatter than he looked… But Troy was gone now. Duke finally let his tears fall. God, he felt awful… and so guilty.

He turned to see almost everyone crying silently, except for Dax, who couldn’t shut himself up. Dre and Dax were hugging each other. Instead of hugging Izzy, Duke decided he was too tired to sulk through the whole night. “I’m going home.” Dre waved his hand, while Dax mumbled a goodbye and Izzy hugged him as a goodbye. Finally, he headed home, enjoying the numbing cold of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the Minor Character Death is now there. If you didn't read Sons of Batman: Origins, basically, here Troy's death has a bigger impact on the team because they are actually friends, unlike in We are Robin.
> 
> On the other hand, I don't know if I want to have Abuse in the final battle of this event, as there are both pros and cons for his taking on it. On one hand, I really want Damian to stablish himself as a capable solo hero; on the other hand, the challenge ahead of him is really big, and I want him to make up with Colin.
> 
> What will I do? We will see.


	14. Pyg's Night (Part 3 / 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian finally connects all the pieces of the puzzle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We slow down a lot in this chapter to give some breathing room for more action in the next one.

Hopefully, this time he was able to convince the ‘Sons of Batman’ to leave vigilantism for good this time. Breaking their legs to keep them safe still seemed radical and potentially unnecessary.

He went towards where he left the Cycle of Abuse. When he didn’t find Colin there, he remembered to ask: “Pennyworth, have you given medical attention to Abuse?” he asked through the commlink while taking his time to scan more carefully Mr. Toad’s bag.

“Yes sir, Mister Colin is fine. He just needs to spend a day resting both his mind and his body,” Alfred explained. Meanwhile, Damian took out a small tank with gas inside. He wanted to inspect the contents inside the device; however, he first needed to inspect the device itself. He determined the direction in which the tank would exhaust the gas so he wouldn’t get hit by it. Damian clicked it; however, the contents poured in the opposite direction Damian intended, ending with him inhaling the gas. “Are you alright Master Damian?”

Damian put the container back, pretending that the embarrassing scene didn’t happen. He felt like someone observed that embarrassing scene. However, after inspecting his surroundings, he concluded he must have imagined it. “I’m alright Pennyworth. I’m heading towards the Batcave now,” he said as he hopped into the Bat-mobile. He started the engine and drove through the streets of Gotham.

“Son,” his father tried, sitting on the passenger seat of the Bat-mobile. He was looking ahead, not at Damian.

“Father,” Damian replied, his hands on the wheel, not taking his eyes off the street in front of him.

“Damian, you’ve failed,” his father continued. Damian tensed in response, gripping tighter the wheel. “To protect this city, to protect those children, to live up to my legacy,” his father listed.

“I did my best,” Damian defended, full knowing that doing your best wasn’t an excuse for failure.

“No, you didn’t,” his Father denied as if he were refuting a hypothesis or a piece of evidence. “You allowed five years building up the myth of the Batman to crumble in one night.”

Damian wanted to do anything with his body to alleviate the tension. However, he couldn’t turn his head, or take his hands off the steering wheel, or his feet off the pedals. He tensed even more. “If you are referring to the alliance with the GCPD. It wasn’t my fault. It was—”

“Don’t make excuses for your failure,” Father chastised. Damian could only make out the silhouette of his father from the corner of his eye, but the weight of the bat-glare was soaking his body. “On top of that, you could’ve prevented the death of a child. But instead of reasoning with the children, you made matters personal. You centered on them taking your name, instead of their safety. You just found an excuse to vent your anger—”

“I didn’t maim any of them,” interrupted Damian, pretending that maiming was the only inappropriate way to vent off anger.

“But you still beat them up… Gratuitously. You didn’t really try to convince them first; you just gave them a vague justification. It was an excuse to hit someone. Your anger, or rather, lack of self-control, killed Troy Walker,” monologued Batman like he was laying down the evidence of a case. “You killed Troy Walker,” he concluded. Damian really wanted to bang his head against the wheel of the bat-mobile right now, punishment to the disappointment. However, he still had to bring them home safely. “Not only that, but you completely failed to save the GCPD headquarters.”

“The freak had a long-range and mobility. Their defense was formidable, very difficult to break through.”

“Not at all. You have already beaten before enemies that had even longer range than them, better mobility than you. No. You were too fed up with the sword fight, disregarding any other possibilities. Using heavy objects such as the extinctor, combining long-range weapons like the Batarang with your sword technique, dropping your sword in favor of maintaining the fight in a shorter range… should I continue?” With each way of defeating the freak, Damian’s tension leaked to his face, unable to fill his body anymore, clenching his teeth harder and harder, the pressure in his eardrums building up. “It was just like when you were obsessed with the idea that the drug had to be injected. Abuse suggested that your idea was wrong, and you immediately shut him down, without even considering his words. By doing that, you completely disregarded what I taught you. You think your Ph.D. gives you perfect knowledge of biology, but it doesn’t. You are so proud you can’t admit to that fact. You aren’t perfect. You aren’t worthy of the legacy of Batman. You are a disgrace. If it had been me, instead of you, nothing like this would’ve happened.”

Damian. Had. Enough. He slammed his feet on the brakes pedal, his grip around the wheel tightening very hard, his arms pushing to keep him from slamming into the wheel. “Yeah?” he challenged once the car came to a halt. “At least I’m not dead.” He turned as he said it, just to find an empty road with some trees behind it, but no sign of Batman. “Father?” Damian called, looking in every direction to search for his progenitor. He finally noticed the pain that had invaded his leg. He looked at it, seeing his foot deposited on the road, a black trail behind it, and the unmistakable smell of burned rubber. He realized: the dead can’t talk. “Pathetic.” He put his foot back on the cycle, accelerating it again towards the cave.

…

Alfred put a cup of tea in front of Mister Colin, who had frozen gel on his head, trying to get over the headache. “Thank you, Alfred,” Mister Colin told him, with a smile pushing through the obvious pain.

“Would you like anything to accompany your tea?” inquired Alfred.

“No, thank you,” replied the boy with a low tone and flushing. If Master Bruce were still here, Damian wouldn’t have been able to bring the redhead here for medical attention.

It wasn’t painful to reminisce, at least not anymore; the Arab boy was a vivid image of Bruce in his childhood, so he was forced to remember every single day of his life of his son’s absence. One time, Alfred almost called Damian ‘Master Bruce’. He had already gotten used to the absence. He also always had things to occupy his mind with, be it cleaning the manor, taking care of a young assassin, or in this case, his friends.

Damian entered the cave, hoping down from the motorcycle, going straight towards Colin. He looked a lot more on edge than usual. He inspected him for a full fifteen seconds before he left without a word to the Bat-computer, leaving Mister Colin annoyed and a bit confused. He took out the files from the bag he had brought with him, inspecting them while researching something on the computer.

Alfred put a tea mug beside him. “Thank you, Pennyworth,” the boy said without drifting his eyes away from the computer. After 30 minutes of him working, the boy’s demeanor became tenser. “Pennyworth,” he started, glancing at Alfred. Alfred stopped cleaning to look at the young Master. “Do you recognize the name Lazlo Valentin?” he asked.

Mister Colin was obviously interested in the conversation. “No sir,” Alfred calmly replied. “May I ask why?”

“It seems like we have a new player in town. Do you…” Damian trailed off, looking away from the gazes of both men looking at him. If you read Batman’s body language, it was obvious he felt quite insecure. “Do you remember the investigation about the brainwashing agent?” he said, lower than his confident demeanor. Alfred nodded; Colin nodded too. “I believe he is behind it.” He explained.

Both waited several seconds until Colin couldn’t hold it anymore. “Why?” he asked.

“I got a new lead when I f– rescued those kids. That Toad confessed to me very important details about his boss which he already confessed was the one to synthesize the brainwashing agent. Apparently, he performed plastic surgery on the victims so he must be a plastic surgeon. Apart from that, he must be a skilled chemist to synthesize the drug. It narrowed the pool of suspects considerably.”

“However, the final lead came down to finances. He formed a company about a month ago called the Circus of Strange, which had bought a plot of an area with an abandoned Circus on the outskirts of Gotham.”

“Did the money to fund that acquisition come from a suspicious source?” inquired Alfred.

“It is reported that he had performed multiple surgeries on a high-ranking Casino employee who looks exactly the same as she did three months ago.” And casinos could be easily used for money laundering schemes. “Moreover, the company in question hasn’t had any expenditures in the last month. It should’ve because he wouldn’t have bought that plot of land if he weren’t intending on restoring it. It is a decoy. His base of operations is there.”

“Excellent Detective work, Master Damian,” Alfred praised.

Damian relaxed a bit at the compliment but not fully. He stared at Colin in the eye, staying silent for few moments. “It was not excellent,” Damian replied, but still starred at the boy. “I apologize Wilkes. You were right, but I didn’t listen to your complaints even though they were sound. Because of that, innocent people were brainwashed. It won’t happen again.”

A sincere apology from the young man. Getting bested in combat and witnessing the death of another child must have really gotten to him… No, Damian wasn’t his father. When Damian knew and accepted, he was wrong, Damian would apologize (although most times he couldn’t simply accept he was wrong). “It’s okay” Colin replied, giving a small smile to Damian. Damian’s face remained neutral. Colin looked away. “You were right, you know?”

“Always,” Damian replied. Colin turned to give him a look. “Okay, almost,” he added after a few seconds.

Colin sighed. “About training. If I had learned better fighting skills, I wouldn’t have been defeated by Big Top. I’m sorry for dismissing that,” Colin explained.

“Apology accepted,” was everything that the other boy said as a reply. “Now that pleasantries are out of the way, I will head towards wherever the GCPD attackers are,” Damian said while heading back to the Bat-computer.

Alfred had been avoiding this for far too long. He needed to stop the boy. “I will not allow you to go, Master Damian. You are heavily outmatched by these villains, and you have no backup now that the GCPD is against you and Mister Colin is injured.”

“Then call a Justice League Member. Wonder Woman preferably, as her Lasso of Truth could help us gather evidence to prove Falcone’s involvement,” Damian answered, opening the program that administered the trackers.

“The Justice League is unavailable, they are on a mission right now,” Alfred clarified.

Damian glanced at Alfred for a moment. His eyes drifted back to the Bat-computer. “This is far too important. Valentin is probably involved in the attack on the GCPD quarters.”

“Which makes things worse for you,” Alfred stated. Damian turned to glare at him, but Alfred didn’t back down a nanometer. “You are going into a place with fighters that have already bested you and your partner in combat—"

“Former partner,” Damian corrected. Colin looked at Damian thoughtfully.

“—which may also have an undetermined amount of brainwashed people. Furthermore, Doctor Pyg may be able to brainwash you. Going there alone is reckless Master Damian, and I won’t allow you to go.”

Alfred’s words were said with authority and finality. But Wayne’s are going to be stubborn idiots. “It is my responsibility; because of that, I will do it regardless of the risk,” Damian replied going back to the Cycle of Abuse. “In addition, I have never failed the same mission twice. I already have 5 plans in the top of my mind to defeat those freaks.” He started the Cycle but Alfred, stood in the way, not allowing Damian to maneuver around him. “Pennyworth,” he growled, glaring at the old butler.

“No. You will leave this to the police, Damian Wayne,” Alfred sternly replied.

Damian was obviously taken aback by his full name, but he kept pushing. “Please, they have proven themselves to be an incompetent organization, time and again. Move.”

“No, Damian. If I believe going there is an unacceptable risk to your safety, then I will not allow you to go.”

Damian was gripping his motorcycle hard as if he were an inch from lashing out physically. Alfred didn’t doubt he would if he didn’t allow him to go out once more; however, Alfred didn’t think that the boy would dare to raise his hand to the old butler, instead opting to destroy the Batcave. He didn’t get to prove his hypothesis, because Mister Colin interrupted, transformed into Abuse. “He won’t go there alone, I will go with him,” the mole offered.

“No,” Master Damian replied, leaving the Cycle of Abuse to stand up in front of the mole and glare up at him. “Your powers rely heavily on concentration. You’ll just make your concussion worse.”

“Actually, I have been using my powers for the last 50 minutes on my brain,” Colin replied nonchalantly. Before Damian could protest, he continued. “Remember what I told you? ‘Abuse’ heals fast.” Damian continued to glare at the mole, promising death with his eyes. Colin was obviously a bit intimidated, but he didn’t back down. “Alfred won’t let you go if you go alone,” he pointed out.

Damian continued his glare for a few seconds before huffing. “Fine, but you stay strictly as backup.”

“No,” the other ten-year-old denied.

Damian’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his face contorted into a scowl. “This is preposterous! You can’t—”

“I already told you,” Colin interjected, “we are doing this as equals or we are not. So, it’s up to you whether we go together and kick this Doctor Pyg’s ass or neither of us goes. You decide.”

After a few seconds, Damian scoffed. “Fine.”

“Not so fast, young men,” Alfred announced, making both boys turn to look at him a bit shocked. “You have to promise me that you will retire from the battle if it turns too dangerous.” Colin nodded automatically. Damian rolled his eyes, but nodded, nonetheless. “You may go then.”

Damian automatically spun his heel and hopped onto the Cycle of Abuse. “Nuh-uh,” said Colin as he approached the motorcycle with the other boy on it. Damian looked at him confused. “My cycle, I drive,” Colin explained. Damian frowned and pressed his teeth; however, he complied.


	15. Pyg's Night (Part 4 / 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batboy and Abuse finally confront Pyg.

“You said we were going to make a new life here papa!”

“Sasha, sweetheart, shush,” the man said as he zipped the bag. “I know what I said, but I know what I saw. I just escaped from Falcone and that’s something you don’t do twice. There is your uncle Lev. He’ll tell you all about it. Now, you done with packing? Because we have a long journey ahead of us.” There was a knock on the door. His papa withdrew a gun. He opened it to see the face of a man she had never seen before. “Lev? Ah, God.”

He opened the door, revealing a bunch of people with red hair that resembled dolls. “Papa. Who are they? Papa.” The man didn’t answer.

The doll people proceeded to apprehend them, overwhelming her papa’s gun with their numbers. She had to watch as her father was tied onto the table, his extremities spread. Then a man with a pig’s mask entered the place. He had a white apron with blood spread on it and a bow tie. She waited for maybe an hour, too afraid to make any movement against any of her captors until her father finally waked up. “I waited till you were awake. I wanted you to know and feel every moment of your glorious transformation, Niko. Strange how the worst place in the world can be anywhere,” the man with the mask monologued, holding their family’s photo.

“What have you done to me? Please,” his father begged in terror, “let me go.”

“Even the safe, normal world you knew can become a chamber of horrors. Ugly, ugly Niko… you should have never betrayed me. Bring his new face!” The doll people brought a mask that was liberating a color-green gas while the pig-man held the portrait of their family in her papa’s face.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t know who you are! Please, don’t hurt me. Please not—” as the mask was put, his dialogue became muffled (like something was in his throat), turning unintelligible. But her papa was fighting his restrains. He was obviously in pain. What had they done to her papa?

“That’s better. There’s always pain when the ugliness is burned away. You’ve been a bad man, Niko, but that’s all over now. Pyg will make you perfect,” the man said, as the doll people handed him tools to make surgery. Little by little, the man on the table stopped struggling. Sasha felt terror settle inside her, digging deeper than she thought was possible.

As the man with the pig’s face operated on her father, she screamed but was unable to stop hearing the man’s words. “And then, your daughter. In fact, you will help me with her. And when you are done, you’ll be lovely dolls together. Pyg will make her perfect, too. Pyg is here to make everything perfect.”

Sasha screamed louder.

…

It was raining, but Abuse had his coat on.

“You never explained the reason for the attack on the GCPD,” Colin indirectly asked. He was driving the motorcycle in his Abuse form, his hands a bit too big for the handles.

“A suspect that could have potentially double-crossed Falcone by providing the evidence to land him in jail was found dead after the attack. We know for a fact that Valentin is related to Falcone,” Damian explained. He was on the back part of the cycle, holding himself in place by supporting his hands on the back of it.

Abuse hummed. “How did you make the connection between Valentin and Pyg?”

“The tracker I left on their car is literally pointing to the plot of land I mentioned before,” Damian replied.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the way there. Colin had already learned that Damian wasn’t the type to do small talk. 

When they arrived, Colin noticed the bad state the place was in. The grid walls that were supposed to keep intruders outside were rusty. The door of the place was open for everyone to enter. The place was muddy, though that was a result of the rain pouring into the dirt. They parked outside, to not alert anyone they were raiding the place. When they entered, they did so stealthily, checking every corner before advancing. Batboy’s steps didn’t make a sound, while Abuse’s were heavy enough to be everything they heard. At least, until they advanced far enough for Damian to stop both. Before Abuse could protest, he heard something; he strained his ears to identify the sound: a whimper.

Abuse rushed towards where the whimper was coming, blatantly ignoring Damian’s attempt to keep him there with his hand. If someone needed help, he was going to help. He turned around the corner to see a figure inside an old box. When he approached, he identified a girl, her face deformed and ugly, her hair red, tied to a plastic pony. “Help,” she sobbed, her voice too weak.

When Abuse was close enough to touch her, her eyes widened as if she feared the venom mole, trying to make out words. “Huh—Buh—Behind you!” she warned. Abuse turned to see a multitude of people, all looking like the girl behind him, like dolls, except they were dressed as such, unlike the other who wore a red sweater and normal pants. She was afraid of them.

These doll people were attempting to apprehend him, using their numbers to try and bring him to his knees. Understanding that they were the enemy, Abuse fought them. They came too close to apprehending Abuse when one of them began strangling him from his back; however, Abuse was too strong for them, taking the one in his back and throwing them towards the other. Abuse observed how they got up as if nothing had happened, moving all in a similar fashion (though not the same); in the middle of the heat of battle, he realized that all these people were the brainwashed ones. He couldn’t allow himself to be captured, but he needed to go easier on them; he pocketed his mitts.

“Behind you!” the girl warned once more. Abuse turned to see Batboy drop-kicking Big Top. When Batboy landed, he flipped back to create some distance between the villain and him. Colin felt someone touch his back and immediately turned around to keep fighting these Dolls.

Wilkes was an imbecile. He almost got himself captured. However, he would later yell at him; for now, he had business to attend to.

“Don’t come no closer,” the fat man said, cleaning the blood on his face, and taking a fighting stance with his two crowbars.

“I don’t need to,” Damian replied, reaching for his utility belt, “I can cripple you from here. Hut!” he announced as he threw batarangs towards the man’s face. The man blocked the projectiles with his arm, just as planned. Damian took the opportunity of his impaired vision to quickly approach him, taking out his katana.  
“I can’t feel my arm!” exclaimed Big Top, as he swung his arm in front of him. It landed on Damian, who was thrown into the silk wall of a tent, ripping it as he landed inside it. Damian quickly got up. Big Top approached him, ripping the hole in the wall wider as he did so. When he got to striking distance, the fat man yelled “That wasn’t nice!” But Damian easily evaded the blow, kicking the man in the chin and impaling his wrist. The man yelled in pain. Damian proceeded to take the crowbar from the floor. He hit the villain in the head, who was knocked out. Damian retrieved his katana, throwing a foam grenade to prevent Big Top from bleeding to his death. A big silhouette appeared on the hole of the wall. 

Abuse kept fighting on the crowd, even as he became aware that Damian was inside the tent beside him, fighting Big Top alone. He trusted that Damian could defeat Big Top alone; after all, he did mention that he had already planned for him. He was surprised when he felt someone hitting him from behind his head. He fell to the floor, getting overwhelmed by the dolls, who choked him until he was knocked out. As he lost consciousness, he heard someone saying: “What do we have here? A big bad troll and a little bad pixie alone in the darkness… mmm? Haven’t they heard? The hour of the pig has come, and the night already belongs to me!” Abuse took a hold of the one strangling him, slamming them towards the other. He gasped some air before another one began choking him again.

The three men freak; it was time for round two. Damian charged with his katana, keeping his feet on the ground. He ducked below the three-men-propelled kick, initiating an exchange of blows. This time, Damian scanned his surroundings; there was nothing he could use. Not that it would be a problem.

Damian threw a smoke bomb on the ground; he had trained to fight in the dark. Maybe these men had trained too, but it was worth the shot. Damian swung his blade; to his delight, he had struck one of the men’s belly open. They were joined by their suit, which meant they couldn’t separate from each other, which meant the man had just become a dead weight to his team. Damian knocked out the other two while he still had the advantage of visibility. Then he used another foam bomb to stop one of them from bleeding to their death.

When he stepped outside of the tent, he immediately turned to find that Abuse was being overwhelmed by doll people, taking one off his back just for another to climb behind it again. Damian dropped into the fight, freeing Abuse from the dolls. “Thanks.” Abuse and Damian both fought through the crowd. As he did so, he spotted a man wearing a pig’s mask. That must be Dr. Pyg. However, they couldn’t get there because there just were far too many dolls in the way.

As they fought to the crowd, Pyg kept monologuing (or more like spewing nonsense). “The little bat gremlin here uses his sword like a brush, if he drew blood the ground would become a piece of art. Your art is the art of death.” 

“Help!” said someone from behind him. Damian turned to see the girl that was tied to the pony. She had been disfigured but hadn’t been brainwashed; must be that the brainwashing agent Pyg used was defective. Someone tried to grab him from the back, but Damian just hit them with the back of his fist without looking. With his katana, he cut the girl’s restraints with ease. Damian immediately turned to continue fighting the crowd.

“While you bring death, I bring life. Pyg brings perfection. Pyg’s art is life, the work of perfection.”

“Sasha! My name is Sasha!” the girl announced as she stood up. She was three or four years older than Damian, taller than him.

“Hello, I’m Abuse” Wilkes answered, punching one of the dolls. The crowd was smaller now; apparently, they were finite.

After some silence (more like Pyg’s rambling), Wilkes glanced at him. Damian rolled his eyes. “Batboy,” he presented himself.

“Once I transform you and sculpt you into one of my perfect Dollotrons, you’ll be beautiful, just like me!” he pestered, as he stripped his shirt, revealing his hairy chest. Gross. Wilkes seemed completely perturbed, while Damian was reconsidering what ‘wrong’ meant.

Sasha was palming her face. “What did he do to my face?” she asked. She had already stopped crying. There was only terror on her face.

Damian decided that this was a far too dangerous place to risk a victim breakdown, so he ignored the question. “Stay with us, we’ll get you out of here, we promise.”

“Hey! Don’t speak for me!” Damian turned to glare at the mole. Only a few Dollotrons were remaining, not too long before they could take down this Pyg. “But we will,” the boy quickly amended, not turning to look at Damian, but obviously feeling the weight of the glare.

“Why do you look at me like that, like there’s something wrong with me?!” Pyg continued.

Damian turned back to the fight, noticing too late that the girl had gone around the crowd, to go directly to Pyg. She lunged at the man, tackling him to the floor, both of her hands on his neck. “What did you do to papa?” she accused, as she strangled the man to his death. Damian was rooting for her to do so.

While the man was getting strangled, he made pig’s sounds. “Don’t kill him!” Wilkes yelled, punching the last one of the dolls. Damian wished there were more dolls so that Abuse wouldn’t stop the girl from killing the criminal. He would do so himself if he hadn’t promised to not kill.

Before he could do so, Pyg swung his cane at the girl’s head, liberating himself. The man coughed, before getting up. “You betrayed me!” he accused, standing above the stunned girl. He raised his cane. “Not even Pyg’s mask can fix you! I’ll have to beat the shit out of you—”

Before the man could continue, Abuse punched him square in the face with his mitts, breaking his mask, immediately knocking him out. Damian looked at the man’s face, confirming that it was Lazlo Valentin. “Are you alright?” Abuse asked the girl, helping her stand up. The girl was covered in mud, just like Abuse and Batboy.

She put a hand on her head, nodding. “Where is papa?” she asked back. Abuse looked at her with pity.

Damian deduced that Pyg had transformed her father into one of his dolls. Now that the fight had ended, he could disclose the information. Before he could explain, though, Alfred cut in: “Remember to be tactful.”

“-TT-” There was absolutely no way no tell her that her father was brainwashed in a ‘tactful’ way, but he would try anyway. When he opened his mouth, he sensed someone observing them. He noticed a shadow in the distance, which retreated to the forest when it was spotted. Damian immediately ran to purse it.

“Where are you going?” Colin shouted.

“Stay with the girl!” Damian yelled back, following the shadow towards the forest.

Damian lost sight of the figure but didn’t stop pursuing, straining his ears to follow them. He closed the distance steadily. He spotted a bunch of figures in front of him after a hot minute of pursuing. Realizing that it was a trap, Damian unveiled his katana, as he too realized that he was surrounded 9 to 1. Lights in the trees around him turned on, illuminating the arena.

Damian threw batarangs to the three figures in front of him, evading the projectiles others threw at him. They were shurikens, so either assassins or ninjas. Hell broke loose, Damian coming out of the battle while confirming they were assassins during the fight.

Someone approached from behind him. Damian immediately turned and tensed; he hadn’t sensed before whoever was approaching. He made out the silhouette of a woman. “Well done son,” she complimented in Arabic, as she stepped into the light.

Damian’s eyes widened, in surprise. Damian dropped his blade to run and hug his mother. “Mother!” he exclaimed, as he embraced her. Mother embraced him back.

The hug ended quickly as their family wasn’t one of prolonged physical contact. Her mother kneeled in front of him, studying him from head to feet. “Damian, you have grown.”

Damian straightened. “I told you Mother; I will be taller than my Father.”

“And you’ll grow stronger,” his mother completed a look of nostalgia in her eyes.

Right… she wouldn’t see his father again. “Am I coming back to the League?” Damian asked, betraying no expectation on his voice. He hoped that not, though he didn’t know why.

His mother stayed silent for a moment. “No Habibi,” and Damian felt relief washing all over his body, though he didn’t let out the sigh he had been holding, as his mother could be lying to test him. “Although your father is dead, there is a lot for you to learn here in America by yourself. Your Father’s colleagues also have lessons to teach you.”

“Are you referring to Wonder Woman and Black Canary? Because the rest of them have proven themselves to be imbeciles with superpowers… except Manhunter, he isn’t incompetent.”

“Off course Beloved,” his mother replied. “You have already passed your first test, don’t disappoint me.”

Damian went blank for a moment. “Mother, did you stage this?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

“No,” his mother replied, “we merely limited ourselves to observe you. The disaster this night was entirely caused by actors completely outside the League.” Damian’s anger immediately subsided after his mother assurance. “I just called the police.” Huh? “They just captured your motorcycle and are pursuing your sidekick.” Wait, What?! “This is another test; I expect the best performance. Goodbye Son,” she said, kissing Damian’s forehead, leaving the scene. 

Before Damian could answer, his comms chimed in. “Master Damian, are you there?” asked Pennyworth with a loss of composure that was unlike him.

“Yes Pennyworth,” replied Damian, taking out his tracking screen. “I’ll head to Abuse’s position right now,” he added, while he took off, putting the screen back in his belt.

“You’d better get here fast! They have the Cycle of Abuse!” Wilkes chimed in, distress in his voice.

“Of course.”

The comms stayed silent for a moment. “Would the young master be so kind to inform why he didn’t answer our distress calls a while ago?” inquired Pennyworth, obviously bothered.

Damian was irked himself. “I just met with my mother. She scrambled my communications.”

There was silence once again. “Your mom? Why would she do that?” Wilkes questioned, utterly confused.

“To test me.”

“Test what?”

“Do you ever shut up Abuse?” Damian finally snapped.

“Do you ever smile Batboy?” the other countered.

“Smiling is for the weak.”

Before Abuse could answer, Pennyworth interrupted their discussion. “Are you going back to the League?” he queried, a hint of gloom in his voice.

“Not yet. My mother says I still have a lot to learn here in America.” Damian caught up with Abuse, who was currently taking cover from the police. Damian threw two batarangs at the policemen, hitting them in their foreheads. “Less chatter and more kicking ass!” he ordered, as he entered the fight.

…

“4-2,” Damian said out of the blue, while Colin drove towards the GCPD headquarters (they had to retrieve the Blackbird).

“Huh?” Colin puzzled.

“I’ve saved you four times while you only saved me two times,” Damian explained, smugness in his voice.

Colin recounted the times he was saved by Damian. “You’ve only saved me three times,” he deadpanned.

“No, I saved you four times,” he replied, with his you-are-stupid voice.

“You are just inflating the markers.”

“Whatever, I still saved you more times by your own admission.”

“That won’t apply in the future.”

Damian snorted. “Your arrogance amazes me, Wilkes.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “Look the one who’s talking.”

“Shut up, Wilkes.”

“Nope.”

“You are insufferable.”

“You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Colin didn't get his rematch against Big Top. The reason for this is simple: while with Damian I could pinpoint the cause of his defeat in a character flaw, Colin's flaw is that he isn't trained, he is merely strong, and I cannot possibly justify Colin becoming way better than he is after 50 minutes resting.
> 
> Anyways, the next chapter comes the epilogue of this event. There will be consequences for outlawing vigilantes. Oddly enough, I think that this chapter marks the end of the first part of this story, not the next one.


	16. Pyg's Night: Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consequences for Pyg's Night. Our boy is now an Outlaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, more things were going to be part of this chapter, but well, it was getting far too long. Actually, I cut down scenes that didn't add to the plot, as I realized that some information was being rehashed a lot.

October 04th, 2002  
9:30 a.m. Gotham’s City Hall

The mayor was looking through the window, grinning at how clever he was.

“Mayor,” greeted someone from behind him.

The mayor jumped in his seat and turned to see Batboy on the other side of the room. Why was the boy here in his office? How did he get in? “What are you doing here?” puzzled the mayor, not giving away any fear in his voice.

“I want you to reconsider your decision about outlawing vigilantism,” the kid explained.

“And why would I do that?” the Major inquired, turning to face completely the vigilante, while discretely pushing the button below his desk.

The brat rolled his eyes. “I am keeping this city safe. Abuse and I were the ones to apprehend the Pyg and his subordinates,” the kid argued.

The mayor hummed. “You only apprehended Mr. Toad. You didn’t apprehend Pyg, the police did,” the mayor argued back.

The kid kept a carefully blank face and neutral voice, though he was obviously confused from the silence before talking. “No, I defeated Pyg. The police arrived after that.”

“Says who?” the mayor challenged.

“Says me,” the boy replied in defiance.

“It’s your word against the word of a dozen officers,” the mayor replied. The boy stayed silent for another moment; his face twitched.

“The criminals would say otherwise,” Batboy countered.

“And how would that become relevant enough for them to say that in a court?” asked the mayor.

Batboy stayed silent. “Their wounds,” he finally argued back, “they wouldn’t have been inflicted by the police.”

“The cut on the man’s belly can be attributed to a previous encounter. As for Pyg’s marked face, we can just say that it was caused in an earlier fight between you and him.”

Batboy stayed silent, completely tensed, glaring at the mayor. Even though the boy was possibly at his most unstable, the mayor was truly relaxed right now: he had completely outmaneuvered him.

“The girl would say otherwise. And it will be relevant to her testimony,” Batboy finally reasoned.

The mayor was confused, which girl was he talking about? At that moment, the police busted in from the door behind Batboy. Losing no time, Batboy grappled to the ceiling, escaping through a window.

The mayor looked thoughtfully at the window from which Batboy escaped from. “Are you alright mayor?”

The mayor maintained a neutral face, but in his insides, he was grinning. He had another idea.

October 05th 2002  
08:03 a.m. Wayne Manor

People yesterday seemed to be more afraid of him than usual. Sheep he saved had outright called him a terrorist. Yesterday he didn’t have the time to look at the news, as he had been too busy researching a drug. He had to read what the news had been saying about him (not that he really cared).

> **Batboy: terrorist? (05/10/2002)**
> 
> Last night the GCPD headquarters were attacked by the criminal group now identified as the Circus of Strange. The objective of the attack was to kill a suspect of murder that could have provided key information to the police about the bosses of Gotham’s Mafia. The police later that night apprehended these villains.
> 
> During the attack on the GCPD two boys became involved with the struggle against these criminals despite their activities getting outlawed minutes before. Batboy, ninja kid relative of Batman, and the recently identified Abuse, less-known hulk that marks criminals as punishment. Both kids came close to getting killed by the criminals as live footage of the fight revealed yesterday.
> 
> However, the criminals weren’t the only ones these vigilantes fought that night. While Batboy was inside the GCPD headquarters, he had an exchange with four officers where he injured three of them, one as a result of using them as a human shield.
> 
> The footage of the fight isn’t available as the criminals destroyed all of it after they got in.
> 
> The available footage is the one where Batboy tortured criminal human-animal hybrid, Mr. Toad, that assaulted the Metropolitan Bank after said criminal killed one of the Sons of Batman, now identified as Troy Walker. Right now, the police are investigating to determine the identities of the rest of the Sons of Batman. 

Damian stopped reading the newspaper for a moment, realizing that he was presented with a choice. For now, he would leave the claims about himself for later reflection.

It wouldn’t be long before the police decided to examine Troy Walker’s communications with other people (if they hadn’t done it already) and prove that those stupid kids where engaged in vigilante activities and send them to the correctional.

On the one hand, that should keep them safe and unable to become vigilantes for a long time. On the other, the kids had already seemed to agree with Damian that they should leave vigilantism.

‘One could never be too secure.’

‘But do they deserve going to jail?’

‘They endangered their own and other people’s lives.’

‘Yes, and I do the same.’

‘No, I don’t. I have the training. I know how to keep people alive.’

‘Well, that’s true…’

He had made his decision until he remembered something; they knew he was the true Son of Batman, and there was a good chance they would tell the police upon their capture.

Damian was sure he was already being investigated; the Patriot Act allowed the government to do so after all. However, the government couldn’t find anything because all of Damian’s communication was done in an embedded Ghost network.

Arab, dead white father, rich, famous; far too many coincidences to not take him as **the** primary suspect. Even if nothing were proven, Baz could attest that due process didn’t matter with Arab people.

“Dammit.”

He shouldn’t have told them anything that could imply he was the true Son of the Bat. Now he was grateful for the average westerner's stupidity regarding Arabic; if not, suspicions on his civilian persona would’ve started a month ago. He had to tell Baz to stop referring to him as Ibn Al Xu’ffasch.

He hacked into the servers of their communications companies, destroying the SMS of their activities and that would imply any close connection between them and Walker. Damian would later have to destroy further evidence of these kids’ activities.

> It is believed that Batboy was interrogating Mr. Toad, as he took the bag that the hybrid was carrying, which could have contained important evidence for the police to examine.
> 
> Still, the worst crime Batboy has committed was to threaten the mayor after vigilantism got outlawed. _Wait what?_
> 
> “He came into my office this morning and told me to repeal the decision or else,” the mayor testified. “I was really frightened but stood my ground. Fortunately, the building security came in before he could do something.” _Excuse me?_
> 
> With the recent performance on the part of Batboy, the police have begun to suspect that he may be implicated in terrorist activity. By extension, Abuse has become a suspect too. 

“ما اللعنة” Damian yelled (WHAT THE FUCK?).

“Language! Master Damian.”

11:15 a.m.

“If that’s true then why would he lie?” Wilkes challenged, clearly angry on the other side of the line.

Wilkes's anger at him made Damian angry at him. Still, he didn’t show it in his voice yet. “I suspect it has something to do with his approval ratings and winning the next elections. Although I don’t know how outlawing us helps him.”

“That reason sounds to me shaky at best,” Wilkes countered.

He wasn’t implying what he was, now was he? “Excuse me?”

“I’m calling bullshit.”

“I’m not lying Wilkes!” Damian replied, allowing his anger to fill his voice. “Use that fucking head of yours for once! You know he already lied about our involvement in apprehending Pyg. It is obvious that he lied about the footage of the GCPD during the attack. Why would the Circus of Strange destroy the footage if they can be identified through news footage and it was obvious their responsibility for the death of that suspect? Easy, they didn’t. It was part of the mayor’s scheme to be able to claim that I used an officer as a shield, instead of saying the fucking truth that the official that fired the gun was an irresponsible idiot. Knowing both of those things, is it difficult to believe the mayor was lying about the threat too?”

Wilkes stayed silent for a moment. “Damn you Damian!” the other one replied, and the phone clicked.

Damian sighed.

When Colin vented off punching criminals in their heads and had time to reflex, he realized that he had been unfair. He would have to make up to Damian somehow.

October 06th, 2002.  
07:11 a.m. Wayne Manor

Now that he lived in the capitalist west, Damian understood why from a social standpoint it had to perish. Capitalism led to pronounced inequality (just look at the Narrow’s kids, look at Wilkes). Inequality led to unrest. The unrest led to instability. The instability could lead to full-blown revolutions and rioting when it exploded; before that, Damian would bet that it looked a lot like Gotham. As Gotham seemed to have been in that state for a long time, Damian speculated that the chaos from such a revolution would end up burning the city. Damian hadn’t gone to the rest of the US, but he assumed that it was the same in its other cities.

_“Will the League of Assassins overthrow capitalism?”_

_“No, Leviathan will.”_

_“What is Leviathan?”_

_“You will know when it rises.”_

When he examined Wilkes, he took note of how unnaturally pale the kid was, and his freckles just emphasized it. He took note of how ribs were more prominent of how they should be; how his belly didn’t have enough fat, or his arms and legs had enough muscle. If he was intending to train Wilkes, he needed him to be properly fed. Damian had taken the last two afternoons to research about nutrition and make a plan for him. However, Wilkes was living in a place where Damian couldn’t control his diet. For that, he had a solution.

He was still mad at Colin for stating that he was lying. However, he had already learned that he couldn’t stop doing something important because he was mad at someone; or else, people can die.

“Pennyworth,” Damian greeted the butler, who was currently enjoying his leisure time at the library. The butler had a book about the psychology of trauma. Maybe Father’s death had resurfaced Pennyworth’s memories over his time as a soldier? After all, Damian had read a lot about how the veteran’s mental health was a disaster.

“Master Damian, how can I help you?” Pennyworth asked, putting his book away to give his full attention to Damian. 

October 06th, 2002.  
12:15 p.m. St. Aden's Orphanage

Colin was surprised to see Damian in St. Aden. It wasn’t like last time when he tried to have a low profile. This time he came with rich boy’s clothes (a black turtleneck and Levis jeans) and his butler; on top of that, he requested to talk with the head of the orphanage: Sister Agnes. Shortly after he entered the orphanage, Colin was called inside. He was nervous.

He opened the door of the office. “Wilkes,” greeted Damian, as if they hadn’t had an unresolved fight.

“Hello Damian,” Colin greeted back, closing the door behind him. He thought he did a good job to conceal the guilt.

“Sit down Colin,” Sister Agnes told Colin, pointing to the chair to the left of Damian; Mr. Alfred was sitting on the other side of him. After Colin seated, Sister Agnes explained “Mister Wayne here is telling us that you two have met before outside St. Aden and that you were alone. Is that true, Colin?”

Colin didn’t know what Damian had in mind, but he just got him in trouble. “Well…” Colin began, scratching the back of his head. Sister Agnes gave him a stern look, as in ‘Don’t lie to me, Colin.’ Colin sighed. “Yes.”

Sister Agnes glared at him and Colin looked away. “Colin,” she said, but Colin didn’t dare to look at her again. “Colin, look at me,” she repeated, with more authority. Slowly Colin turned to look her in the eye. “What were you thinking?” she scolded.

Colin winced. “Umm, well…” he tried. He couldn’t say ‘Yeah Sister Agnes, I’m actually Abuse. I went out because I was investigating the missing children case.’ However, Colin couldn’t think of any other plausible explanation. “I was looking for Lev and—”

“Let me get this straight,” the Sister interrupted. “When children went missing, you went to look out for them alone. Am I correct?” Colin resisted the temptation to look away. He nodded. “For God’s sake Colin! You could have been abducted!”

“I…” Colin tried again, but he choked on his own words.

Sister Agnes kept looked down to her desk, then to the wall, then back at Colin. “I’m so disappointed in you Colin.” At the statement, Colin’s eyes stung. His vision became blurry.

“Wilkes may have been reckless,” Damian interceded. He just wanted the other to shut up, to not make things worse. He was about to lash out. “However, I can attest to his upstanding moral character. Colin is so caring and compassionate, values which are preached by Christianity, that he couldn’t stay in the sidelines.” Colin’s anger mellowed a bit. He felt a bit fuzzy inside at Damian’s defense. “I know you can’t let Colin’s actions go unpunished, but in light of this reasoning, I am requesting you to consider a mild punishment for Colin.” It didn’t make up for putting him in problems; nevertheless, Colin felt tempted to forgive him. At least, Colin was sure that it had taken an enormous effort for Damian to be diplomatic. Colin wiped his tears.

Sister Agnes seemed to consider Damian’s words. “You know, for a kid your age, you have an advanced vocabulary.” Damian seemed to want to say something (probably something arrogant or sarcastic) but didn’t. Instead, he nodded. “I will decide what Colin’s punishment will be after he comes back,” she finally allowed.

Wait, “Come back?”

…

It was the first time Colin was riding a limousine. He was in awe. Just for this, he had already forgiven Damian.

“I apologize for making you get punished by Agnes. However, you must understand, this is necessary.”

Colin raised an eyebrow at Damian, who was looking at him intensely. “For having lunch together?” Colin joked. Damian nodded. Wait… what? “You did this so that we could have lunch together?!” Colin asked in disbelief. “Dude, if you wanted to have to have a meal with me, we could have gone somewhere to eat after patrol.”

Damian stayed silent for a few seconds, with that blank face of his. “-TT- We will do that also. However, you are making the wrong assumptions Wilkes. Having lunch at the manor is important not because I want your cursed presence when I’m eating (why would I want that?), but rather it will allow us to give you proper food for the intensive training I will give you.” Oh, right… the training. Colin had completely forgotten. In retrospect, Colin felt stupid for thinking that Damian would do anything for friendship. “Furthermore, it will allow us to solidify the relationship of my family with your person in the eyes of the orphanage to later facilitate the adoption,” he ended, glancing at Alfred.

Apparently, Colin could still be surprised, even after all he went through today. “You want to adopt me?!” he asked, not looking at Damian but at Alfred.

Damian answered anyway. “It will further facilitate training.” Off course, everything came back to the training. Not because Damian wanted Colin to be his brother, or because Alfred wanted him to be a son. Colin had stayed silent for a few seconds in his mental rant. “I figured that you would agree to it as it would increase your standards of living. That is, unless, you have a problem with it that I’m unaware of.”

“Off course I have a problem with it!” Colin yelled, losing his composure. “I don’t want to be adopted into a family simply because it is convenient! I want to be adopted because I’m cared about! Because I’m loved!”

Damian stayed silent for a long time. Colin crossed his arms and looked through the window, glaring at everything outside of it, cursing Damian in his insides. He knew Damian wasn’t a demon, but sometimes it felt like he was a robot, which frustrated Colin a lot. “I understand,” was everything Damian said after the silence.

Not even an apology… But Colin hadn’t apologized yet. After some of the anger went away, he finally said, “I’m sorry,” turning to face Damian. Damian turned too, looking at him with his usual blank face. “For not believing you about the mayor lying,” he explained. Damian simply nodded and looked back at the window. Colin did the same.

October 07th, 2002.  
11:05 a.m. Batcave

Damian was typing at the Batcomputer, going through his notes to design a better way to fight crime. If he was going to rule the world one day, he needed to learn the most effective way to fight crime. He already had a way to destroy crime altogether, but apparently, it was far too amoral. Maybe that’s why his mother sent him to his father’s house.

He was caught off guard when a message from the Watchtower arrived, requesting for him to meet the Justice League in their headquarters. That was odd.

Maybe they had recognized his greatness as a hero after he managed to solve Pyg’s night by himself (with a little assistance from Abuse, but he was the one to take on the heavy hitters, so **by himself** ). If that were the case, he would, off course, turn down their glorified club.

Still, he knew it was way more probable that they were going to capture him. A trap essentially. Baz was insistent on the importance of due process, and there were no real proofs of any wrongdoings except for the word of three policemen and the mayor, so maybe they would just interrogate him.

Finally, he decided he would give the benefit of the doubt to the JL, but he would have a plan to get out of the watchtower just in case. After all, he needed the training of Wonder Woman and Black Canary, and for that, he had to be in the good graces of the Justice League.

11:38 a.m. Watchtower

Simon entered the room, the little assassin in his Batboy attire towing behind him. He was looking at everyone in the room with a calculating gaze, and his body completely tensed. Superman heard the conversation the boy had with the GL. He had assured that he was innocent and directly asked if this meeting was a trap. Off course, Simon had reassured the kid that they just wanted to talk. The kid took the seat marked with a bat, his chest barely above the table.

“Hello Damian,” Superman greeted.

“Superman,” the kid greeted back, “Justice League,” he said, looking at the rest of them.

“We have invited you here because—” Diana began.

However, Damian interrupted her. “Because you are going to interrogate me on whether or not I did what I was accused of. If you determine that I am, then I will be captured and sent to jail. If I’m not, then we will return to the status quo. Let’s cut all of the preamble and hand me the lasso of truth,” Damian monologued. Well, they wouldn’t go as far as sending him to jail, but some measures would have been put in place.

Absolutely no one was surprised by Damian’s behavior except for Jessica and Arthur, who hadn’t had previous experience with the kid. “As you see Jessica, he is no chill,” Ollie commented.

As Diana put the lasso around Damian’s hand, he remarked “Off course I don’t chill Queen. I have been climbing the Himalayas since I was four.” So being trained since he was a baby wasn’t a joke, good to know.

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Kid, I wasn’t referring to the cold. ‘Chilling’ is an idiom for relaxing,” he explained.

Damian’s eyes widened in a fraction of a second. “I don’t relax either. Relaxing is always a bad idea. You never know when your enemy may strike you,” Damian replied. Crossing his arms and tilting up his chin.

Before Oliver could reply, Wonder Woman interrupted. “We are getting sidetracked. Remember Damian that if you don’t answer, it will be painful. Are you sure you want to do this?” Damian nodded.

The Justice League proceeded to clear out what Damian had, and hadn’t done. Everyone was surprised upon learning that Damian hadn’t threatened the mayor or used a policeman as a shield. Still, no one was surprised when it was confirmed that the video was real.

“Why did you take Mr. Toad’s bag?” J’onn inquired.

“It contained sensitive information.”

“What information?”

“The formula and method of synthetization of a drug that is highly addictive. It doesn’t have any side effects; besides the strong dependency it creates. It could be used to enslave people.” At the reveal of information, many faces in the room went pale.

Diana was the next to ask. “Have you handed back the evidence to the police?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It isn’t safe in the hands of a government, especially if it is the one of a superpower,” Damian explained.

“Are you planning to use it?” Arthur dared to ask.

“No.”

Good, that was good. But personally, Superman couldn’t help to ask “Why?”

“I had a long conversation about ethics with Pennyworth. Apparently, using it, even to end crime, could lead to a totalitarian state. Although democracy is highly inefficient, I have learned in my time in the west why totalitarian states aren’t desirable either.”

Superman sighed in relief. “Can you hand us the evidence?” Dinah softly requested.

“I can, but I won’t.”

Oliver slammed his fist on the table. “What? What do you mean by that?” Dinah put a hand over her husband’s fist and gave him a look.

“I don’t trust you enough to give you that kind of information.”

This was Batman’s kid after all. Superman didn’t think that even the Lasso of Truth could convince him to trust the JL with that information. Before things could escalate, Superman proceeded to diffuse the situation. “Damian has already told us that he won’t use the drug. I see no harm with him being the sole owner of the information.”

“That’s not the problem Superman,” J’onn countered. “The Justice League needs to conduct an investigation about this. This drug is a threat to the world’s stability. Once someone gets addicted to this drug, it would be difficult, even for a Martian, to cure them.”

“I am conducting my own investigation, Manhunter,” Damian argued. “I have the situation under control.”

“Damian, I understand your secrecy. However, this matter is far too important to not cooperate,” J’onn argued back.

Damian sat in silence for a moment. “Maxwell Lord. You restored his memories using this. It can counter the powers of a telepath.” As he said so, he stared directly at Diana; she was holding the other end of the Lasso. Diana smirked and nodded. The boy smirked back. “You may hand it to the rest of the Justice League.” Once that was done, Damian began: “If I hand you this information, will you use it for nefarious purposes? This includes, but is not limited to: aid criminal activity, attempt to establish a totalitarian government in any territory, and enslave people.”

The Justice League said in unison: “No.”

“Very well,” Damian nodded, “I will send you this information after I get back to the cave.”

For a moment, the League allowed themselves to smile at the small moment of triumph. However, Black Canary cleared her voice, communicating to Superman with her eyes to not forget something. Right. “Damian,” he announced, catching the boy’s attention. “Even though most of the things said about you were false, the Justice League can’t publicly relate to you until you clear your name.”

Damian frowned but nodded. “I understand, you need to have a good public image.”

“That means that we won’t come as a backup if things go south for you,” Diana explained.

Damian shrugged. “That’s fine by me. I have my own partner. Pennyworth won’t be happy though.” Using his superhearing, Superman heard Alfred complain on Damian’s comms. “I’m assuming that our private relationships won’t get affected. Correct?”

Dinah nodded, very discretely putting the Lasso down. “Yes. You will continue going to counseling, won’t you?”

Damian narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but nodded, nonetheless. “I will. It has helped help me manage my rage.” Damian flushed, and put the Lasso down too, not so discretely. “I would also like Wonder Woman to train me in the art of the sword.”

Everyone turned to Diana. She smiled. “Okay. At what time are you available?”


	17. Heir / Destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian is asked something he thinks impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for not updating chapters in two weeks. I have been occupied with coming back to university.
> 
> Anyway, even though I'm way more occupied than before, I'm going to try to update every week from now on (that is until I can't). So every Wednesday there should be a new chapter. This means that every Tuesday I will update Little Hero, but who knows at what time of the day. So, if you are interested in following the story and haven't subscribed because of any reason, you may come back every Wednesday.

Monday, October 08th, 2002  
10:30 a.m. Wayne Manor

In retrospect, Damian should’ve known that the League was out of the world as he hadn’t gone to counseling the day he told Pennyworth that he would patrol alone because Lance ‘was busy’. But he was digressing.

There were three main disadvantages with being an Outlaw:

• The JL wouldn’t assist him as reinforcements.

• The police were active adversaries.

• Getting insulted and called a terrorist.

However, for Damian, they weren’t that big of disadvantages. He already had his own reinforcements. The police were incompetent, and some of them were even corrupt; Damian was going to take advantage of his status as an Outlaw to purge the GCPD. As for getting insulted and called a terrorist, caring about that was idiotic, as they were just words. So ‘clearing his name’ wasn’t a priority as he had better things to do, like continuing his investigation about the Enslaver Drug…

4:13 p.m.

_“Would you like to explain to me the situation in which they failed? That is if you would like. I’m here to give you advice, not to reprimand.”_

Damian looked away, contemplating the view on the window. The manor had such a modest, mediocre garden; a simulation of nature, but not in itself. Still, Damian decided to go outside, even if he knew his walks wouldn’t compare with his hikes of several mountains. While the hikes were somewhat thrilling, as they were made in extreme conditions; the garden was relaxing, therefore dangerous.

_“Many of us want to get better, but you seem to take it to an extreme. What drives you?”_

Damian was informed several days after arriving at the manor that climbing the Himalayas unassisted was a feat that not many people could brag about. Damian found it both funny, as it was his first and arguably easiest test, and proof that he was superior to normal people (No matter what western society had to say about that).

_“So, you have to be better because of the expectations that were put on your person.”_

_“It is more than expectations. It is a destiny,” Damian replied._

_“What’s the difference?”_

While normal people had expectations, Damian had a destiny. Expectations could be ignored, a destiny could not. Because Damian was created with an objective; normal people were to decide what their objective was.

_“You should read Sartre.”_

_“Because you always have a choice, Damian.”_

And in his rage, he forgot—no, he stopped caring about his destiny and stayed silent for the rest of the session. He never got a more effective method for dealing with his anger. He would have to wait for the next session. For now, he sighed and went back inside to prepare the training for Wilkes.

8:30p.m. Batcave

Climbing the stairs with his arms only, squads with weights, suicides… only half an hour, and Colin already felt like he was dying. He couldn’t catch his breath; his muscles were burning, his mouth tasted blood, and he wasn’t allowed to use his powers. An on top of that, “No wonder you were so easily beaten by Big Top, Wilkes.” Asshole.

Thankfully, Alfred interceded for him. “Master Damian, I do believe it's enough of physical conditioning.”

“Oh, please,” Damian replied, sounding really irritated. “This is a mild training.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow, putting the plate he brought on top of the Batcomputer. “Maybe for a member of the League of Assassins, such as yourself, Master Damian,” he reasoned. “You have to remember this is Mister Colin we are talking about.”

Damian muttered something about westerners and weakness. In response, Alfred looked at him hard. “Ugh, fine. Wilkes, you may turn into Abuse for two minutes to catch your breath. I’ll be counting.”

Immediately, Colin’s muscles grew into Abuse’s in a matter of seconds. He allowed himself to fall onto the floor, letting his whole body rest. “Your transformation is eerily similar to that of a Venom Hulk, Mister Wilkes.”

Colin turned from the floor, to look at Alfred in his position. “Yeah. Scarecrow once turned me into a Venom monster to stall Batman. Somehow, some venom remained in my body, and I can call it by concentrating.”

Alfred hummed. After a second or two of silence, Damian joined the conversation. “Don’t be idiotic, Wilkes,” he scolded, pinching his nose bridge. “There is no way that your powers work like that,” scolded Damian, joining the conversation. “For one, Venom has to be constantly supplied to work, as it decays fast in the blood. Even supposing that your blood has a compound that prevents Venom from decaying, it still doesn’t make any sense, as you should stay transformed all the time.” Colin didn’t understand a single word of what Damian had just said besides that he had been wrong about how his powers worked.

“Then what is your hypothesis, Master Damian?” Alfred inquired, turning to look at him.

“I could bet my title as heir of the Demon,” wait, what? “that Wilkes is constantly producing a Venom supply when he concentrates. As for his transformation in parts, I would guess that it is being produced by the bones in the area he is concentrating. However, whether the injection of Venom activated a Venom producing meta-gene, or his meta-gene is to be able to produce any drug that enters his blood is unclear.”

Alfred hummed in understanding, something Colin completely lacked because his mind was in another place. Before Alfred could add to the conversation, Colin interrupted “What do you mean heir of the Demon?”

Damian turned to look at Colin. “I am the future Head of the Demon. As such, I’m it’s heir.” Wait, one could become the head of a demon? How did that work? Did this mean that Damian was not a Demon but part of one? Or would be at least?

“Master Colin, when Damian says the Demon he is referring to the League of Assassins, not literally a Demon,” Alfred clarified.

Ohhhh… that clarified a lot of things. But not everything. “Why do they call themselves the Demon?”

“To inspire terror, and because it is a good-sounding name,” Damian replied as if it was obvious.

“Why would you need to inspire terror?”

“You ask too many questions, Wilkes,” Damian snapped, annoyed. “I will answer your questions once the training is finished. Time is up, transform back to your scrawny form.”

After some back and forth, Abuse finally came back to being Colin. His muscles weren’t hurting as much but they were still hurting. Thankfully, the next hour was technique and not physical conditioning (not that it wasn’t physically demanding though). Colin learned several ways to throw an opponent on the floor.

After that, he had a second dinner, and he had eaten like never before. During the lunch, he had left his plate unfinished as he wasn’t still used to eating that much. However, now he had eaten everything and felt a little hungry still. Damian had told him to use his Venom form while eating, to accelerate his healing, but Alfred had forbidden the use of powers inside the manor. It didn’t matter though, as he was going to use his Abuse form for the rest of the night.

While they ate, Colin made his questions. “So, why does the League of Assassins have to inspire terror?”

“For deterrence and to have a bigger influence.”

“What for?”

“Coerce governments and powerful organizations into following our Agenda.”

“Agenda?”

“That means their plan, Master Colin,” Alfred clarified.

“What are those plans?”

“Kill three-quarters of the global population and govern the rest to have a sustainable economy.” Colin almost choked. When he stopped coughing, Damian was looking at him with an eyebrow raised, still cutting the steak on his plate.

“Are you going to kill three-quarters of the population?” Colin shouted in disbelief. Alfred gave him a look, but he didn’t care.

Damian had an amused look on his face, but he still answered in a neutral serious voice. “That depends.”

“Depends?!” Colin demanded.

“Yes, are you deaf or something?” Damian snapped. Colin almost hysterically replied with a scream, but Damian beat him to it. “It depends on whether or not I’m the Head of the League of Assassins when the plans are enacted or not. If I were to be, since I promised my father that I wouldn’t kill ever again, and I believe that the depopulation plans are idiotic, unnecessary, and potentially counter-productive in later world governance, it wouldn’t happen. But if those plans were to be enacted before I take the position, then it would likely happen.”

Colin sighed, then groaned, putting his hand on his face. Three-quarters of the world’s population could be killed or not depending on whether Damian got to inherit the League of Assassins before or after.

“Many schemes by the League of Assassins had been foiled by Batman and the Justice League, Master Wilkes. If the LOA makes a move, the Justice League will be there to stop them,” Alfred pointed out. Damian snorted as if the statement were ridiculous. Alfred gave him a look, but Damian didn’t budge, glaring back at the old man.

“The Justice League lost its brain when my father died. If it hadn’t been for him, the last confrontation would have ended in the nuclear inhalation of all the superpowers in the world. Without Batman, the Justice League is doomed.”

Colin anxiety grew, making him eat to quell his nerves.

They kept their glaring match. It was intense. Finally, Alfred was the one to break the silence. “But they now have Batboy, don’t they?” Alfred was smirking.

Damian’s stoic front was shattered with that sentence. His eyes grew wide, his face opened and closed several times, speechless. His face couldn’t hide the shock, or the terror for that matter, because he was whiter than usual. “What you are asking me is impossible,” finally replied Damian.

“Why?” Alfred inquired, crossing his arms. “Are you afraid that you won’t be able to outmaneuver Ra’s?”

Damian shook his head. “Not yet, but that’s not what I’m referring to. You are asking me to go against my own destiny!” Wow, not quite a neutral or rageful voice.

Colin frowned. What did Damian mean? Alfred had no such confusion. “As the heir of Ra’s Al Ghul, you are bound to surpass him, aren’t you?” Damian nodded once. “Then you are going to accomplish his mission in a better way than him. If you believe that the way he is doing so is wrong, then you should oppose him, even as his heir. You may inherit his mantle, but that shouldn’t stop you from doing what you think is right, Master Damian.”

Damian starred at Alfred for a few moments more; then, he continued eating his plate in silence. He had an impeccable posture, but constantly looking down at his plate made him look a lot less confident than usual.

After dinner was done, they wordlessly headed to the Batcave. Damian changed into his Batboy attire, and they headed in their motorcycles to fight crime.

Tuesday, October 09th, 2002  
8:00 a.m. St. Aden’s Orphanage

The nuns had woken everyone up. They were currently taking turns in the showers to take the morning bath and head to the breakfast hall. When he and his group finally got there, he finally looked at himself in the mirror. His ribs were less prominent. His arms and legs were somewhat thicker. Best of all, he didn’t feel any pain from the training of yesterday. Bless Abuse’s healing factor.

None of his friends noticed though (or if they did, they didn’t comment), but the change was obvious to him.

It wasn’t all great that day though. Had the breakfast shrunk or? Because it left him a bit hungry (not a lot tough).

12:30 p.m. Wayne Manor

Damian hadn’t talked much yesterday, but he had somewhat participated in lunch’s conversation (which was mostly between Colin and Alfred). Today though? He was silent. He ate, but he didn’t look at either Alfred or Colin. This earned him a few concerned glances from both. When he finished his plate, he got up and excused himself, going back to work. At the departure of his friend, Colin turned to look at Alfred whose view lingered on the exit of the dining hall. 

After finishing his plate too, Colin told Alfred to wait for him a moment before taking him back to St. Aden. He ran downstairs to talk with Damian.

“Damian!” he announced, as he spiraled downstairs.

“Wilkes,” Damian acknowledged without looking away from the monitor, “what do you want?”

“Are you alright?” Colin puzzled.

“Off course,” Damian dismissed, “why wouldn’t I be?”

“You didn’t say a word at Lunch.”

“I didn’t have anything to add to the conversation.”

“That’s because you weren’t paying attention to it.”

“I was thinking about a case, far more important than the banal conversations you may have with Pennyworth.”

Colin rolled his eyes. Damian was typing something in the bat computer. After a moment of silence, Colin finally added. “Look, I don’t have a family—"

“Obviously,” Damian sarcastically added.

Colin ignored the mean comment. “But I know what Alfred asked you was probably hard…” Damian stopped typing, his fingers tensing. “You know, going against your grandfather. You know that you don’t have to do it. Right?”

Damian hit the bat-computer once. “If you are here to take pity on me, then leave.”

“Dami—”

“I said leave, street rat!” Damian yelled, turning to glare furiously at Colin. That jab was different than the rest of Damian’s jabs. Colin felt the pure hatred and anger in it because it stung; both in his chest and in his eyes. “What? Are you going to cry?” he mocked. “Are you going to your mommy? Oh, I forgot, you don’t have one!”

Damian crossed a line with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 27/01/2021: Re-adapting a Legacy  
> 03/02/2021: Eco-terrorism is Not a Crime  
> 10/02/2021: Batboy's sign
> 
> (probably)


	18. Minichapter: Not Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin and Damian have a fight in the batcave. They later talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, coming back to university has been heavier than I expected. I was planning to release the triple of this chapter to tackle development that Damian needs to get and setting up the arc's villain. But oh well. One can't do a calculus demonstration and release a long chapter on time.

Tuesday, October 09th, 2002  
12:45 p.m. Batcave

When Alfred came down to see why there was so much noise, he found Master Damian and Mister Colin fighting. The cave was a disaster: vehicles and gadgets had been thrown all over the place, some sections of it were destroyed and Colin and Damian were currently fighting very near to the edge of the floor.

“Boys, stop!” Alfred demanded before the fight could lead to disastrous consequences. However, the two little vigilantes were too engrossed in their fight to hear him. Alfred kept making the same demand as he cautiously got nearer to the boys.

Damian was currently dominating the fight as Colin transformed couldn’t land a single hit on him while Damian’s kicks and punches contained enough momentum to do some damage to the pseudo-titan. All the while the assassin kept taunting the redhead on being incompetent.

The situation got dire when Damian landed a kick on Colin’s face that threw the venom-hulk off balance and made him trip over the edge. Fortunately, Damian realized in time his mistake to keep Colin from falling off the edge. Unfortunately, Damian managed to do so at the expense of a dislocated shoulder.

The boy grunted at the pain. He was currently holding Colin with the dislocated arm. “Wilkes, depower so I can lift you up!” It took a moment for the decision to be made in which Alfred feared Master Colin would decide to continue fighting. Nevertheless, rationality primed this time. Alfred quickly approached once Colin was depowered, to help Damian lift the boy up (Master Bruce’s son was trying to lift him by himself using the other three functioning limbs).

After Alfred had cured Colin’s wounds and Damian had relocated his own shoulder by hitting it against the wall despite Alfred’s protests, Alfred finally sat them down for explaining duty. Like the children they were, Damian and Colin were looking in the opposite direction the other was.

“Well?” prompted Alfred, tapping his foot with his arms crossed and raising an eyebrow.

The boys remained for a moment. Without looking away or moving, Colin was the first to answer. “Damian called me a Street Rat,” he answered in a low voice. “He also made fun of me for being an orphan.”

Alfred was taken aback by the response. Betraying no emotion, he subsequently asked “Is that true, Master Damian?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Wilkes wouldn’t stop bugging me, so I reacted accordingly.”

Alfred sighed. His eyes turned into ice, and his voice turned cold. “That was an unacceptable response, Damian.”

Damian turned surprised to look at Alfred. “Wh—”

Alfred didn’t give him a chance to talk. “You should know better than that, Damian. Your father was orphaned, and it brought pain that he could never get rid of.” That made Damian look guiltier and less angry. “You yourself are partly orphaned. What would you—How would you react you were made fun of because your father was killed?” Damian sustained eye contact for a moment. Finally, he gave in, looking down in shame. Colin glanced at him with the edge of his eye with disdain, hmphing. Alfred didn’t ask him to say what he would do because it was sufficient with him knowing.

Alfred turned to look at Colin. “Did you start fighting Damian after that?”

“It was deserved,” he justified, tightening his crossed arms.

Alfred shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. Violence, at least, in this case, isn’t the answer.” Colin seemed to be angrier at Alfred’s response. “'Civilization began the first time an angry person casted an angry word instead of an angry rock,’” he quoted from Sigmund Freud. Colin hmphed again, turning further from Alfred. Alfred merely hoped that Colin thought about it.

Alfred sighed. He now had to decide the punishment. He couldn’t bench them because it was a simple matter of time and probabilities before something big enough trumped over it. Besides, the punishment wouldn’t really fit. He raised his view from the boys, observing the wreck the Batcave now was. “You are cleaning up this mess,” he sentenced. “I will call St. Aden to inform them that you are returning late.” Alfred was going to tell the nuns the truth omitting the part where the fight took place inside the Batcave and not in a manor room. “Damian, you are going to clean the cave for the following week.”

Damian immediately raised his head to look at Alfred. “That’s your job!” he protested.

“And I’m giving it to you for a week as part of your punishment,” Alfred replied. Damian glared at him but didn’t say anything else. Finally, Alfred retired to call the nuns.

…

“Wilkes,” the wind, probably, said. It was unimportant anyway. Colin didn’t pay any attention to the sound, centering on moving the bat-mobile to its original place (its windows hadn’t even cracked through the fight. Colin was impressed). “Wilkes.” Colin continued carrying the car, pretending he didn’t hear. “Wilkes.” Perhaps if he ignored it, it would go away. “Wilkes.” Just ignore it.

“Wilkes!” Damian was in front of him, looking directly into his eyes. Colin proceeded to surround him and continue. “Wilkes!” This time, Damian didn’t allow himself to be surrounded. Colin simply pushed him to the side with his superior force. He heard a growl of frustration behind him. Colin smirked. “Wilkes!” The smirk quickly died. Now the bastard was dangling from the car he was carrying, looking at the redhead. Colin shook it to no avail; Damian held to it like the stubborn asshole he was. Colin took it with both hands, swinging it fast. Damian was launched towards the roof of the cave. He managed to take a hold of one of the cables holding a light (making it swing), using it not to impact against the roof and slide back down.

Once Colin was sure he hadn’t accidentally killed Damian, he continued his way to put the bat-mobile in its place. Of course, once he put the bat-mobile on the floor where it belonged, he felt something attached to his leg. It was Damian, and he was glaring up at him. Once again, he tried to shake Damian off his leg, which proved useless. Colin used his hand to tear the assassin off his leg, throwing him against a table in the process. Great! More to clean now!

Colin groaned, putting his hands on his face, and balling them into fists. He punched the cave walls, blowing chunks of stone off of it. Once he got calmer, he looked at the disaster he made. Even more cleaning! He turned to look at Damian who was closer than he thought he was. Realizing that Damian wouldn’t go away, he decided to finally acknowledge him. “So when you want to be left alone I can’t bug you but when I want to be left alone you can? What a hypocrite.”

“I wanted to apologize, and assure you that it won’t happen again,” Damian explained.

But Colin wasn’t having any of it. “Well, I’m not forgiving you. Now, leave me alone.”

Damian’s face twitched; nevertheless, he immediately followed it with. “I expected as much. I’ll make it up to you. That’s all.” With that, Damian spun around to continue his cleaning duty.

Colin continued with his cleaning duty too. He began with the table he had recently broken, and the chunks of rock on the floor. As he picked up the pieces, he began to reflect. His anger had always been a problem. That was the reason why he was deemed a troubled child. Ever since Scarecrow took hold of him, he had been getting better (Therapy of the aftermath had helped a lot), but there were a few moments when his old behavior came to shine, like this one. He had almost killed Damian (to be fair though, Damian had almost killed him), and if it hadn’t been for the spikes on the cave’s floor (Stalactites? Stalagmites?), Colin wouldn’t have ever depowered.

He looked at the rocks in his hands. He took a deep breath. “You are an asshole Damian,” he said, loud enough for Damian to hear him from where he was. Damian stopped sweeping the floor, a simple task he was doing wrong (rich kids are useless), to pay attention to Colin. As Colin made his way to the bin to deposit the rocks there, he explained “I was only trying to help you; you didn’t have to lash out at me like that. You hurt me.”

“I didn’t ask for your pity either,” Damian replied, being angry himself. “I didn’t need your help.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t pitying. I was worried.”

Damian’s mouth snapped shut. He stayed silent for a moment, his gaze really intense; the calculating stare he had when they were about to fight during a patrol. Finally, he talked again: “I didn’t ask you to worry about me.” Before Colin could answer, Damian continued, “Our relationship is purely professional. We are not friends.”

It took a moment to process. Damian’s statement felt like rejection. But it had been obvious, hadn’t it? Every ‘friendly’ action Damian took was with the (either implicit or explicit) intention of helping Colin be a better crime-fighter. And either way, they had only known each other for about a month, while street law dictated that one had to know each other for way longer before calling each other friends. “Okay,” Colin replied. Damian nodded and came back to work. Colin did the same.


	19. CHOICE

Wednesday, October 10th, 2002  
3:33 a.m. Wayne Manor

Damian couldn’t sleep. He wanted to turn and toss in the bed, ruin his perfect position where he could respond to a threat if it ever made its way to Damian’s room. His head wouldn’t let him get rest because a question kept popping up in his mind:

‘Did I do the right thing?’

The obvious answer was yes because his father would’ve done the same; his father wouldn’t have sympathized with a cop murderer and let them go free. However, what did that mean to him? to an assassin? Was he treated differently because he was Batman’s son? If that was the case, did he like the notion or was troubled by it?

He tried to shut up his mind, attempted to focus on his breathing, on the sound of the leaves moving on the tree outside of his room that made the window another point of attack to plan for, even straining his ear to try and (unsuccessfully) hear the bats in the Batcave.

But his brain wouldn’t shut up.

It also wouldn’t shut up about how oddly Wilkes was now acting towards him. It was his silence. Wilkes was a really loud partner, always talking over fights that made Damian sometimes order him to shut up, just for Wilkes to disregard the order and continue talking. This made Damian want to cut his vocal cords so he would shut up already (but he had already learned to restrain himself). So, this was what he wanted, right? Damian wasn’t even sure about that.

Well, if he couldn’t sleep, maybe he would do something productive with his time. He stood up to go towards the Batcave. As he walked right past the kitchen, the thought of having some tea came into mind. Alfred was a servant, so Damian had every right to wake him up to make tea. However, the mental image of an old blind tired man serving him tea made him reconsider. Where was Ravi? How was he doing? Was he even alive?

Suddenly, Damian realized he was standing in front of the kitchen, doing absolutely nothing. He had lost track of himself, time in which he could have been killed or else. He took note of his surroundings and inspected himself. Nothing out of the ordinary. He should go to the Batcave to train.

8:00 a.m.

As soon as the alarm went off, Alfred woke up. He shut down the alarm with a gentle press of his extended hand.

Slowly, without urgency, but without laziness, he went through the motions of his daily morning routine, just stopping once or twice to contemplate the photo of him and his son. Once he was in his suit, he exited his room, and with a perfect posture and velocity, he headed towards the kitchen. Master Damian was probably at this point of the day in the Batcave doing his pre-breakfast warming up. They woke up at the same time, but Damian bathed after Patrol, in contrast to Alfred, who bathed in the morning.

Once Alfred had done the breakfast, he went to the Batcave to announce to Damian that the breakfast was ready. Damian seemed a bit sluggish in his training, which meant that Damian had started his routine before, but Alfred chose not to comment.

Once again, breakfast went in complete silence. Normally Damian would make a few remarks about work and training, but for the second day, he was in complete silence, because of Alfred’s comment… because of Alfred. He had called Miss Lance already, explaining to her the situation and giving her the update of yesterday’s fight. Retracting his words wasn’t an option at this point, or they were risking a lash out just like Damian had to Colin. He just hoped that Damian didn’t decide to go back to the League of Assassins on a whim.

He went on daily chores as normal. At 12:00 p.m., with the food almost complete, he went to St. Aden to pick up Mr. Colin; the trip back was filled with the pop in the radio. The lunch with the sound of the platter. The trip to St. Aden and back, the pop in the radio. The chores with the sound of whatever task he was fulfilling. Dinner: platter. Patrol: the necessary words for coordination.

The only proper conversation he had was through the phone with his daughter in England.

Alfred could have been as well alone during the whole day. Without Master Bruce there, Alfred couldn’t stop feeling lonely, like a smell, a sight or a ‘hnn’ was missing. However, he wasn’t young and inexperienced like before; he had been through a similar situation several times, and he was prepared to wait until he became apathetic (because there was no way he could move on).

He was prepared to wait until hell froze over because he had already outlasted that damned place before.

And the next day it was a little easier to breathe, a little easier to stand up, a little easier to continue, despite that his body was growing older, weaker, and less energetic.

Thursday, October 11th, 2002  
2:05 p.m. Lance’s Office

This time Damian broke the silence way earlier than she expected to. “I need a better method to control my anger,” he cut straight to the point.

Surprise almost broke through Dinah’s front. Instead, she smiled, uncrossing her feet, and taking an interested posture. She stayed silent though, prompting him to talk.

“I… I lashed out at my partner. I… I pointed out the fact that he was an orphan to… to hurt him… As a result of that, Alfred… he… he was disappointed. I promised that it won’t happen again, but to that end, I need to better control my anger.”

“Damian, the first step to taming your anger is to admit it exists and that it gets out of control, and you have already done that,” Dinah began, to soothe the nerves of Damian and communicate that she felt proud of him for coming to her. Damian nodded. “The second is to admit what, or who, you are angry at.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “And if I’m angry at nothing?”

Dinah shook her head. “There’s always a reason behind our anger. It doesn’t have to be a person, although it normally is; it can be directed towards an event, an institution, a system, an animal, or a thing.”

Damian frowned, looking down for a moment. Finally, he raised his head to meet Dinah’s eyes. “I don’t think I know what the cause of my anger is.” That was probably false; he could already know, but not be able to admit it to himself.

“It’s okay if that’s the case. You should reflect upon it until you get an answer,” Dinah prompted.

With that they fell in comfortable silence for about 30 minutes.

“Yesterday I felt pity towards a criminal.”

“Have you ever felt pity before?”

“Yes, but… not in that way.”

“What was different about this pity?”

“I… I felt his desperation for a moment.”

Empathy? Was it new to Damian? “What did you do to him?”

“My job: I captured him and left him for the GCPD to pick him up.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“Nothing,” Damian quickly answered. Dinah waited in silence for five minutes. Then, Damian changed his answer. “I don’t know.”

“Did you feel satisfied?” she prompted.

“No,” decidedly replied Damian.  
“Did you feel bad?”

Damian’s eyes averted. “It was my duty.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

He glared at her. “Well, it’s a stupid question.”

“If that’s the case, it should be easy for you to answer it.”

“It’s pointless.”

“Humor me.”

After some seconds of glaring at her, he finally answered with conviction: “No.”

But Dinah wasn’t going to give up that easily. Unlike before, if she didn’t press now, Damian would never admit it. “Then why did you look away when I asked you.”

“Something caught my attention,” he replied, narrowing his eyes.

“Really? Would you tell me what caught your attention?” she asked.

“How stupidly big your forehead is,” he mocked.

“Really? Then you wouldn’t have looked away in that case,” she replied, smirking and laying back.

Damian huffed, crossed his arms, and turned away. Dinah maintained her posture, to annoy Damian in the quick glances he gave her. “Don’t act like you have won Lance,” Damian muttered after some minutes of silence.

“I’m not. We aren’t in a competition,” she replied, smiling at the young assassin.

“Good. Then change your posture, it’s annoying,” he ordered, still looking away.

“Why is it annoying?” she inquired, playing dumb.

Damian turned to glare at her. “-TT- Because you are acting like you have outmaneuvered me.”

“Have I?”

Damian narrowed his eyes. “No.”

“You haven’t still given me a truthful answer to my question.”

“Your forehead could fit an entire stadium in it.”

She realized that she couldn’t out annoy Damian, so she switched tactics. “Avoiding again Damian?” she asked straightening her posture, and putting on a more serious face. “Do you realize you gain nothing by not admitting the truth, do you?”

Damian fumed at her for a few moments. “Fine,” he groaned. “I felt a bit bad. Was that what you wanted to hear?” Dinah nodded. “I don’t know why you make such a big deal of it.”

“Because that feeling will come up again in the future,” she calmly replied. “You’ll always have to make tough choices.”

“-TT- It wasn’t a choice.”

“I’m not saying that you should have, but you could have chosen not to apprehend him,” Dinah explained.

They fell in silence again. “Stupid Sartre,” Damian muttered. At least he heard Dinah’s recommendation.

4:03 p.m. Batcave

Damian had buried himself in work, doing the detective work of a lot of cases, and developing more efficient routes on patrol that should lower crime rates more. The rise of fear gas cases coincided with the rise of fear gas last year, which meant Scarecrow had to be planning something big. Damian was planning to end his schemes with a preemptive strike.

However, a case made him stop his productivity rush: the disappearance of Sasha and Niko Sobol. That didn’t make any sense, as Damian was very sure that Abuse had delivered Sasha to the custody of the GCPD.

Unless… unless they had killed her because her testimony could bring down the strategy of the mayor by exposing him as a liar. Damian felt a pang of guilt at the thought.

Anyways, this warranted fieldwork.

6:28 p.m. Gotham’s General Hospital

He had gone to multiple hospitals and clinics under cover of a civilian kid, stealing records about the Dollotrons. Reports talked about hundreds of people turned into mindless dolls, all in the same robes, being delivered to different facilities after Pyg’s Night, which was inconsistent with Sasha’s existence. The conclusion a lesser detective would have reached was that she was killed after being delivered to the GCPD. However, that conclusion had two faults:

1\. The mayor looked confused when Damian said that the girl’s testimony would be relevant. If that was the case, he would have been aware by then of the girl’s existence.

2\. There were no Dollotron corpses reported. It would be a reason to believe that it is hidden, but the mayor had already framed him twice. If the police had done that, they would have lost the chance to frame Batboy a third time for outright murder.

No, there was something more here. He had to keep digging. By chance, when he was looking deeper into the files of Gotham’s General Hospital, two people entered the records room. Damian quickly hid.

“I’m telling you, it happened,” Man one, probably a resident, complained.

“Yeah, yeah. Are you expecting me to believe that we missed something like that?” Man, two answered, older, probably a doctor. Damian’s interest rose at the ‘missing’ part.

“Well, no… but it is real, I swear! She talked,” he punctuated that part. “She asked me if I knew where her papa was!” It had to be Sobol.

“And she was dressed differently to the rest of the Dollotrons and had a slimmer physique than the rest of them,” the other one answered with a deadpan voice. Definitely her. The resident nodded. “And she vanished, ‘Pouf’, like for art of magic,” he sarcastically mocked.

“I didn’t say she vanished. I looked away for a moment and she disappeared!”

The doctor had been checking through some files. “Ahá! Finally, I got what we came for. Anyways, regarding the magic Dollotron, I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“But—”

“If you do, I’m going to make you fail.” With that, the resident’s mouth snapped shut and they left the room.

8:09 p.m.

Damian changed into his Batboy attire once he had a solid lead on where this girl could possibly be. He had gone to Dr. Thompkins's brand new clinic, the only place where Sobol hadn’t appeared after a quick sweep of the security footage. When he was about to check room 18 (which he heard some muffles), he heard some security officers chattering. Damian hid before he could open the door.

“So, are you going to tell me who this new girl is?” the bulkier one asked.

“We are nothing… yet” the other one replied. Apparently, they were checking room by room for any anomalies. The first security man cooed. Damian rolled his eyes.

When the men opened the door of room 18, they found a Dollotron asphyxiating another one with a pillow. Damian recognized the one asphyxiating as Sobol. The Dollotron below her wasn’t moving. No one moved or said anything for a moment.

“One of them is killing the others!” one of the security guards exclaimed. “Call reinforcements!”

She turned around to charge at the guards. “I’m different from them.” They withdrew their guns. Unfortunately for one of them, Sobol was already cutting his face. “He’s my papa.” The other officer was about to point at her, but Damian beat him to it by hitting him from the side with a batarang, to prevent the guard from killing her.

Damian considered for a moment apprehending Sobol.

“Being his heir shouldn’t stop you from doing what you think is right.”

“You always have a choice.”

“You could have chosen not to apprehend him.”

“I have a right to choose.”

“At least I’m still alive!”

For the first time, Damian considered letting the criminal go. In fact, he considered several possibilities. The girl and the guard were currently struggling in the floor; Sobol was getting overpowered. Finally, Damian made his choice: he threw a batarang to help…

help Sobol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is what I managed to write. Hope you enjoyed it!


	20. ON HIATUS

I'm sorry, but University has been pretty heavy this semester. I'm afraid I can't update this story anymore without me feeling rushed to do so.

I want to write my best work and you deserve my best work. However, as things are right now, I can't give that to you.

Don't expect any updates before March 24 ( **probably** 2 updates that week and the next). Don't expect regular updates until July.


End file.
